Poisonous
by CheyWolfe
Summary: Ritsuka collapses while on a field trip to New Jersey! Soubi quickly rushes him to the best hospital in the state- Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Soubi personally seeks out Dr. Gregory House and he takes Ritsuka's case. SXR ftw. please R
1. Chapter 1: sickness

_**Chapter one: introductions**_

"Soubi," Ritsuka dizzily gripped his Fighter's hand. "I'm not feeling too well." Ritsuka, Soubi, Natsou, and Yoji were all practicing a battle in a hotel room in New Jersey USA. Ritsuka was on a school trip and had needed a chaperone. Natsou and Yoji had begged Soubi to bring them along and then had insisted on seeing Ritsuka fight in a friendly battle.

"We can stop now, if you'd like," Yoji told Ritsuka in all seriousness.

Ritsuka rocked on his heals, holding onto Soubi's hand tighter to keep him upright. His entire body suddenly felt burning.

"Ritsuka?" Soubi leaned down beside him and put an arm around him to support him. He glared at the Zero twins, "What did you two do?"

"Nothing, we swear!" Natsou answered quickly.

Soubi felt Ritsuka's head with the back of his hand. "Damn, you're burning up. You two! Go find me the best hospital around here!" He felt Ritsuka shiver from the temperature of Soubi's skin making contact with his burning body.

"No…" Ritsuka's protest trailed off.

"You need to go."

"No… Mom will find out… and I don't speak fluent English…" Despite his words, Ritsuka wrapped his arms around his Fighter's neck and closed his eyes.

"You don't but I do-!" Soubi was cut of as Ritsuka groaned faintly and went limp in his hold, unconscious.

Natsou and Yoji returned just as he did, "Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital has one of the best diagnosis teams in the world."

* * *

HIA READERS!

Call me Wolfie. Info about me? Well, I'm juggling about 5 different stories at the moment. A couple are crossovers. This is my second crossover.

OH and I LOVE reviews so review, please!

~Wolfie


	2. Chapter 2: introductions

_**Chapter two: Introduction**_

House smirked to himself as he finished emptying Cuddy's desk yet again. He quickly scribbled a note that read _guess who_ and stuck it on the top of the pile that was spread over the top of the desk.

"Are you Lisa Cuddy?" House looked up, startled, at the source of the deep voice. He expected to see a newbie staff member but instead saw a tall man with long blonde hair carrying a black haired boy who still retained his ears and cat-like tail. House's mind raced as he evaluated this man with the odd accent. What intrigued him most were the bandages around his neck that he didn't even try to hide.

"Yes, I am," House lied. "I think you overshot the hair salon by a couple miles, though. Or are you gender confused?"

The man ignored his comments. "I need the best damn doctor in this hospital."

House grabbed his cane. "You know," He said, limping a couple steps. "The last time somebody said that to me, they pulled a gun on me and shot me."

"Trust me," His tone turned dark. "I can do much more damage than a gunshot wound, Lisa."

That almost sent House over the edge. He tried to keep a serious face but failed. "Alright, you got me. I'm not Lisa Cuddy," House told him.

"I don't care who _the hell_ you are. Connect me to the smartest doctor here or I'll do some _very _illegal things to you and nobody will ever find out."

House spread his arms, "Gregory House at your service."

The man pointed at him without letting go of the kid in his arms, "_You_?!"

"Yes me. I take he's the patient," House nodded towards the small teen. "Because I'm pretty sure that A, you're too young to be his father and B, you're not sick."

The first signs of an emotion played out on the blonde's face. Sadness shone in his blue eyes as he looked down at the boy and tightened his grip on him. "Please cure him. I- I can't figure out what's wrong. He won't wake up and he isn't responding to my voice. He needs professional help."

"Well, I guess you came to the right place, then."

"Thirteen year-old Japanese boy fell unconscious during a school trip to the states. Had a fever of 105°. House, why are we taking his case?" Forman read off the case file as House hobbled in.

"He's got an interesting boyfriend," House said as if it was commonplace.

"_You_ think some kid's teenage boyfriend is interesting?" Thirteen smiled and crossed her arms from her seat next to Forman.

Instead of just doing what he usually did, House split the board in half and wrote a name on each side; _Ritsuka Aoyagi, 13 _and _Soubi__Agatsuma, 20_.

"Oh my God," Thirteen started saying what she, Forman, and Chase were all thinking. "Don't tell me, the older guy is the boyfriend…"

House mockingly cocked his head to the side, "And how'd you figure that one out, genius?"

"Should we call the police?" Chase asked in his own Aussie-British accent.

"You're the one who kissed a child cancer patient," House wrote what the rest of the team considered to be 'symptoms' on the board under Agatsuma Soubi's name; _arrogant, ass, smart, cares for only one person_. He finished by drawing an arrow from one side to the other.

"Sounds like your new best friend," Forman commented.

"Do either of them even speak English?" Thirteen pressed as if she thought it impossible to treat a boy who had just came from Japan.

"The boyfriend does. Fluently. Though he's got an accent, but it's not as annoying as his," House glanced at Chase.

"How do you know that they're-" Thirteen began again, only to be interrupted by her crippled genius boss.

"Oh it's so_ obvious_. You three, go see the patient so we can write down some more symptoms."

"Soubi, tell me what happened," Ritsuka had woken up about an hour before. He had been confused and Soubi had refused to tell him what had happened until he was fully competent.

Soubi, who had been out to sign some papers for a few minutes, leaned down and kissed the young Sacrifice on the cheek. "What do you remember?"

Ritsuka thought for a moment, "Natsou and Yoji were practicing with us and then everything went kind of fuzzy."

"Do you know where we are and why we're here?"

"We're in the states. I'm on a fieldtrip in New Jersey. You came with me. Now will you tell me what happened?"

Ritsuka seemed to be fully conscious and aware. "You passed out," Soubi glanced down. "We're at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. It's the best hospital in the area. I brought you here. Your doctor's name is Gregory House. He's quite the ass but the dean of this hospital told me he and his team were one of the best in the nation." While Ritsuka was passed out, Soubi had gone and spoken to the _real_ Lisa Cuddy, a woman who ran the hospital.

"How did you do it? How did you talk to the doctors?" Ritsuka tried to sit up but the wires connected to his arms didn't allow him to get very far.

"Don't exert yourself, Ritsuka," Soubi gently gave him a soft nudge back down. "You'll only make it worse. I never told you where I was born, did I?"

Ritsuka shook his head, "No. Don't tell me-?!"

"In the states. I don't remember where but my parents and I stayed here until-" He cut himself off and closed his eyes as if it was a memory he didn't want to remember.

"Until what? What happened?" Ritsuka was persistently curious. Especially when Soubi told Ritsuka something about himself.

"It's nothing. I'll tell you someday," He looked towards the wall, which was simply just a large window with blinds and a door in the middle of it. Nobody seemed to be heading towards them. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm tired. Really tired," Ritsuka replied, eyes half closed.

"Anything else?"

"My stomach hurts."

Soubi felt his head and took his hand. "You're still running a fever," He said, noting the monitor hooked up to his young boyfriend.

Ritsuka gripped his hand weakly, and sighed, "Do the doctors know what I have yet?"

"No, but I'll do whatever I can to make sure they figure it out."

* * *

Please Review!


	3. Chapter 3: Suspicious

Chapter three: Suspicions

"Don't you think we should call the police?" Thirteen asked her fellow colleagues as the three of them headed down the hallway.

"Please, just let it go," Chase begged her.

Thirteen ignored him, "You think the boyfriend is abusive?"

"No," Foreman replied simply. "And I'd bet on it too."

"I'll happily take you on."

"Oh good god," Chase complained.

"You win, I get your clinic hours and I win you get mine," Foreman held out his hand and Thirteen shook it.

They reached the room that Aoyagi Ritsuka was staying in. Thirteen noted how the blinds were open and smiled slightly to herself. Foreman knocked once at the door and let him and the others in. What she saw was not what Thirteen had expected to see.

A young boy was on the bed, smiling at the man who sat in the chair beside him and holding onto his hand. He had his ears and tail perfectly intact and his face seemed perfectly fine except for a small Band-Aid on the right side of his face. The older man was an abnormally tall with long blonde hair and silver tinted glasses. He looked to be worried about the teen next to him but also enjoying the conversation they were having. When he turned to look at the doctors who had entered, the younger immediately followed his gaze.

"So, when do you want to start those clinic hours?" Eric whispered to Thirteen, who pouted.

"Are you three part of House's team?" They were all startled at how well the young man spoke English. The boy was, too.

"Y-yes," Foreman stuttered.

"Agatsuma Soubi," The older man, Soubi, tilted his head to the side. "And you?"

"Eric Foreman, Thirteen, and Robert Chase," Foreman gestured to each in turn. "That is Ritsuka, I assume?"

Soubi leaned over and whispered something into the other male's ear. He nodded and looked at the doctors. "Yes… Aoyagi Ritsuka," He said in broken, hard to understand English.

"He doesn't speak very much English," Soubi told them. "So he doesn't understand much of what you say."

"Alright," Foreman sighed. "Tell him we need to examine him."

* * *

"They need to examine you," Soubi translated to Ritsuka. Ritsuka could only understand a couple of words but luckily, Soubi spoke nearly perfect English. He felt safer around him, knowing that somebody cared about him.

"Okay," Ritsuka told him. A dark skinned doctor said something else to him.

Soubi leaned towards him again, "They need to perform some tests on you."

"What's this test for?" Soubi asked House. Foreman and them sat in an observing room, watching over the room where Foreman had Ritsuka doing some tests. His head was hooked up to wires and a set of headphones rested on his head.

"He," House pointed to Foreman with his cane. "Is a neurologist."

Soubi leaned against the wall, waiting for him to go on when he didn't, "…And?"

"Well, he _obviously_ thinks it's neurological. It's a brain activity and hearing test."

"You're an ass, you know that?"

House put on a do-you-really-think-I-care look and turned around to observe the young boy in the room below. "Did you get shot or something?!" He suddenly whipped around.

"What?" Had House just asked Soubi if he had gotten _shot_?! What the hell would give him that idea?

"Your neck," House said. "Why do you wear the bandages around it?"

"I wasn't _shot_ that's for sure!" It was honestly another one of those memories Soubi preferred to not recall.

"House," Foreman said with an urgent tone. House and Soubi both looked at what was on the screen; a graph with reading that had jumped recently.

"What does that mean?" Soubi glanced out the window at Ritsuka who seemed perfectly content.

"What? Never went to medical school?" House commented.

"Ask him if he can hear us okay. He doesn't seem to be responding to anything."

Soubi came forward but House blocked his way and spoke into the microphone.

"Hey kid! Can you hear us?" To Soubi's surprise, he spoke in perfect Japanese.

Ritsuka just sat where he was, violet eyes glazing over. House asked again but Ritsuka still did nothing.

"You'd better get down there," House told Foreman. "Or call a crash cart."

"Why?" Foreman narrowed his eyes at him.

"A crash cart?! What, is he going to do, stroke?!" Soubi was growing more and more worried about his Sacrifice.

"Either that or he's going to seize," Sure enough, a few seconds later; Ritsuka fell out of the chair and began shaking uncontrollably. He seized for a few seconds and then fell motionless.

"Or, you know, it could be both," House pointed at the monitor with Ritsuka's stats, showing that his heart had stopped.

"Ritsuka!" Soubi yelled, rushing out of the room. In a second he was down at one of the two doors that led into the testing room. "Shit," He muttered finding the door locked. He quickly set a spell on it and burst through the door. No thoughts went through his head; only relief when Soubi saw a team of nurses jump-starting Ritsuka's heart.

* * *

Sorry for the delay! Chapter three and four shall be put up today, then youll have to wait a little longer.

~wolfie


	4. Chapter 4: Loveless

Chapter four: Loveless

"What causes stroking, seizures, fevers, passing out, and extreme fatigue?" House wrote down all the symptoms by Ritsuka's name on the white board.

"That could be anything," Foreman said.

"I don't care. Go."

"It could be viral encephalitis," Chase began. "It would explain the seizures, passing out, fever, and fatigue."

"But that wouldn't explain the stroke," Thirteen argues. "And he'd most likely have herpes."

"Who says he doesn't?" Foreman said. "He could just have a weak heart."

"Go do an STD test on him," House ordered. "Run an MRI and a CT scan on him to detect abnormalities in the brain. Do a DNA test, too. If the diagnosis is right, start him on the corticosteroid Methylprednisolone to stop the inflammation of the brain, herpes medication if he has it, and Anticonvulsants to stop the seizures."

While the rest of the team left to carry out House's orders, House himself limped towards the backdoor of his office and crossed the balcony to the door opposite. A teenage girl was inside, talking to House's one and only real friend James Wilson. He banged on the glass door with his cane and yelled out, "Wilson!"

Wilson glared at him, then said something to the patient that House made out to be 'Excuse me a second; I have to listen to my nuisance of a friend's problems. You can wait outside, of you'd like.'

The girl nodded and left.

"What now?" Wilson sighed as House walked in.

"I've got a new patient," House told him, settling on one of the chairs.

"Why else would you be here?" Wilson said half to himself.

"He's a thirteen year-old here on a fieldtrip. He doesn't speak much English, only Japanese. His twenty year-old boyfriend is here with him."

_Now_ he had Wilson's attention. "T-twenty?" He asked, sitting up in his desk chair.

"There's something weird about him. Something I just can't figure out."

"And that… annoys you…?" Wilson guessed.

House recalled the scene from earlier. When Ritsuka's heart had stopped, that Soubi guy had gone running out of the room. Unbeknownst to him, House had followed him and had seen him do something very impossible. Something that couldn't be done by a normal person.

"I don't know," House stood again and ran his hands through his hair as he began to pace.

"Can't you ever just let something go?"

"No, it's just this guy," House struggled to find the right words. "He's a smart, arrogant ass. And I couldn't read him. I've never _not _been able to read somebody."

"So, he's like a second-?" Although House could guess what Wilson was about to say, he couldn't finishes because his ring tone went off. House glanced down at his cell, groaning when he realized it was Foreman.

"What?" He growled, furious at him for interrupting his conversation with the only person who even remotely liked him.

"House, you've got to get down here _now_. There's something wrong with this kid's DNA."

Ritsuka was still in a light drug-induced coma when Foreman, Thirteen, and Chase returned to his room. It was later that night, only a couple minutes after House had told them to do the tests but still around nine PM. Soubi still sat at his bedside, looking even more exhausted and stressed than he had a couple hours earlier.

"Out of all due respect," Foreman said to him, as Thirteen and Chase evaluated Ritsuka's monitor. "But how long has it been since you've actually gotten any sleep?"

"It doesn't matter," Soubi leaned his head back against the wall and half-closed his eyes. "If only you knew, then you would understand why I would do whatever I could to help him."

Foreman found himself looking over at Thirteen, whom he still had feelings for. He suddenly wished there was a way to take back all he had said in the time during House's time at the mental hospital.

"Why are you staring at me?" Thirteen asked, raising an eyebrow, she then abandoned talking to him and turned to inform Soubi. "We need to test his DNA."

"For what?"

Thirteen uneasily exchanged glances with Chase.

"For uh," Chase struggled with telling him. "For STD's?"

To all three's dismay, Soubi fully understood. He stood and spoke accusingly to them, "For what?! He's still got his ears!"

"We don't suspect anything," Foreman tried to explain. "But it would help us eliminate what category of Encephalitis we think he has."

Soubi stared at him for what seemed like forever and then returned to where he was seated beforehand. "Fine. Do whatever. But I'm telling you right now if you test for an STD and it comes up positive I hold no responsibility for what I do to whoever gave it to him."

Foreman took that as a yes and had Chase get the DNA sample. Not long after, the three of them were in the lab running tests.

"This machine keeps screwing up," Thirteen complained aloud.

"Me too," Chase agreed.

"Maybe it's the system," Foreman stated from where he was doing some paperwork.

"Could be," Thirteen half-heartedly agreed. About two minutes later her computer made a loud beeping noise, went blank, and showed an error screen. "My computer just crashed!"

As soon as she said that, Chase's did the exact same thing.

"What the hell?" Foreman murmured as he scrolled through the error command prompt that gave Ritsuka's DNA code. "Chase, look through the DNA prompt. Are there misplaced letters?"

Chase's eyes darted across the screen and grew wider by the moment, "Ye-yeah. This is weird. None of these letters should be showing up." He came over to where Thirteen and Foreman were and all three stared at the screen.

"I've never seen anything like it," Thirteen muttered.

"Could it be some sort of a mistake?" Foreman questioned with some hope.

"No," Chase replied solidly. "We scanned two different samples on two different computers hooked up to two different networks. Neither of the hospital networks are interconnected-"

"So there's no way they both could have the same bug," Thirteen finished for him. "Which means that this is real. Better call House."

Foreman nodded and his cell out of his pocket. He dialed House's number and spoke seriously into the receiver.

"What?" House answered, sounding irritated.

"House, you've got to get down here _now_. There's something wrong with this kid's DNA."

"Like what?" House growled.

"Like the fact that his DNA code crashed both of the hospital's systems."  
"_Oh_ and how did it do that."

"There are misplaced letters in his genetic code that spell L-O-V-E-L-E-S-S. It spells Loveless once with a letter every ten lines and then it just goes back to normal. Something's up with this kid, House."

There was a long pause on the other end of the line, "Print it off for me. Get me every file on him, every medical note, every testimony of any doctor who has treated him, everything, _anything_. Then do the same for the boyfriend. I don't care if you have to steal some files. Just do it. And report directly back to me. Tell nobody except Thirteen and Chase and report back to me alone."

* * *

Please review!

~Wolfie


	5. Chapter 5: demands

_**Chapter five: Demand**_

"House," Foreman tapped at House's office many hours later. He noticed that the blinds were pulled, something he had almost never seen House do. He unlatched the door after waiting for an answer and stepped inside.

The room was dark except for the dim light on the messy desk. House was there, intently reading a case file.

"You alright?"

House appeared to be startled, as he hadn't heard Foreman answer. He scrambled to throw the file off to the side and then turned back to Foreman expectantly.

"Here's the records," Foreman came forward and tossed the thin file onto his desk. "The files on Aoyagi Ritsuka are suspicious. It seems that he lost his memory two years ago. Almost completely wiped. The printout is there, too. As for the older guy, Soubi, there's almost no record of his existence. Nothing except his birth records."

House glanced through the file quickly with a grim face and then opened a drawer, took something out, and tossed it onto the end of his desk to Foreman. "Tell Thirteen to get packing. Chase is staying here and I'm going because I'm the only one who speaks their language," He told him, going back to the case file. There was none of House's usual personality in his voice, just seriousness. "Your flight leaves at seven AM. Five hours."

Foreman picked up the tickets and skimmed through them. "Japan?!" He exclaimed. "Why the hell are we going to Japan?!"

House looked at him as if he was an idiot, "To break into their homes, _duh_."

For a moment Foreman was going to object but then thought better of it. "Fine," He started to leave but when he reached the door, he looked back. "You've seen this before, haven't you, House?"

"Get out."

* * *

"You!" Soubi awoke with a start from where he had almost dazed off. It was House, of course. The only _other_ person in the world who didn't seem to sleep.

"What the hell do you want at," Soubi checked the clock hanging up on the wall. "Three AM?"

"I need to talk to you," House shot a pointed look at Ritsuka, who the medical staff still had not woken up. "_Alone_."

"Why?" Soubi asked him, putting a hand on Ritsuka's bed protectively. "What could you possibly have to talk about this late?"

"Oh shut up," House told him. "Its not like you sleep anyways."

Soubi glared at him, "Fine."

House motioned for him to follow him and led him back to an office titled 'Gregory House'.

"Sit," House ordered angrily.

"I don't take orders from you."

"Whatever," House moved to close the door and shut the blinds. He then stood behind his desk, opposite Soubi. "Take the bandages off your neck. I know exactly what you are."

"Oh, and what would that be?" Soubi questioned, irritated.

"You," House said darkly. "Are a Fighter."

Soubi's eyes widened and he staggered backward a couple steps. _Should I tell him that I have no idea what the hell he's talking about_, Soubi thought. _No. He saw my reaction. There's no point in lying now._

"How the hell did you know that?" Soubi growled, trying to decide if he should kill House or just make him lose his memory.

"Ritsuka's DNA. It spells out LOVELESS. None of those letters are supposed to be in his genetic code. It crashed our entire system. I figured you out from the fact that you have no medical history, despite the fact that you've obviously had something happen to your neck and that someone once nailed something into your hand. You also have an unexplained devotion to Ritsuka, who is your Sacrifice, something I would usually call pedophilia. And I saw you open the locked door of the testing room with some sort of spell."

"Not that. I meant how do you know? And how'd you figure the thing about my hand out?" Soubi examined his hand, the one that Natsou and Yoji had forced a nail into so long ago. There was barely a scar there anymore, so he didn't see how House could have noticed it.

"I noticed the scar you're looking at right now the first time you came in looking for the best doctor. You also avoid using that hand sometimes," He explained. "As for the other question, I assume that you know Ritsu Minami?"

At hearing that name, Soubi automatically narrowed his eyes and growled quietly, feeling a deep desire to murder the teacher.

"I take that as a yes then. I'm not gonna ask because, honestly I'm kind of afraid of you," House held up a file to him. "This is a file from about a decade ago. Something had happened to him at that Seven Voices Academy or whatever. They called me in because apparently I'm one of the best doctors in the world-"

"And one of the most bitchy-est…" Soubi muttered under his breath.

"I feel so loved," House's mocking didn't miss a beat. "Anyways, Ritsu was hurt and he required his DNA to be looked at. It crashed the hospital's computer network because there was some misplaced letters that spelled an actual word out. I ran his genetic code through different systems but the same thing happened. He was forced to tell me everything when I confronted him. He also told me he'd have me killed if I ever told anybody else."

"I didn't think Ritsu would ever tell anybody," Soubi said half to himself.

House opened a locked drawer and produced a small paper, presumably a photo. "He forgot this photo when he left. He always kept it on his bedside while he was sick. I saved it for some reason. I forgot about it for a long time but I remembered it a couple hours ago and dug it out. It's dated back in the eighties. Here, take a look at the back," He limped a couple steps and held out the photo to Soubi.

He took it from the other man's hands and looked at the dated photograph. It was of a family; a woman, a child, and a man, all vaguely familiar to Soubi somehow. The woman was grinning and holding onto the child from behind with one arm around his abdomen and the other guiding one of his hands. She had bright green eyes and waist length blonde hair, and although she wasn't standing up she was noticeably tall.

The man was kneeling on the other side of the child, with light blue eyes and brown hair. He was Japanese and obviously the woman's husband and the boy's father. He looked to be happy with the rest of his family, for he was laughing. The child seemed to be overjoyed and young, four or five, with an appearance that was a mix of his two parents. His bright blue eyes shone behind glasses and his blonde hair had not been cut in what looked like awhile.

"Who are these people?" Soubi asked House, glancing at him from over his glasses.

"There's a caption on the back."

Soubi flipped the page over and looked at the few words written in neat hand writing _Agatsuma_ _Soubi_ _and family_.

"Recognize it now?"

"Y-yes," Soubi could barely remember how to talk after seeing a photo of the people he hadn't seen in fifteen years. "This has to be the only remaining picture of them. I don't even remember a thing about them. Can I…?"

"Keep it," House told him. "I've got no use for it. I don't even know why I kept it. Oh, by the way, I need the keys to your house and Ritsuka's."

Soubi was beginning to get used to House's odd way of thinking. "Why?"

"Because I need to search both your houses of causes for disease. I assume that he spends a lot of time at your place."

A small smile played on his lips as Soubi spoke. "Yeah, he does," He answered, remembering some recent memories.

"I need your keys then," House held out his hand. "I'm leaving for Japan in a couple hours. Doctor Chase will keep up treatment and monitoring.

* * *

**Hey!**

**Hey you!**

**Yes, you!**

Thanks for reading. Please review!

-Wolfie


	6. Chapter 6: Intruding

_**Chapter six: Intruding**_

"This is crazy," Foreman repeated to himself as he, Thirteen, and House got off the plane at the airport in Tokyo, Japan. "This is completely crazy."

"Shut up before someone hears you," House told him. He approached the front desk and spoke to a woman in fast Japanese. She put on a sympathetic face and sent a man off as she picked up a phone.

"What'd you tell her?" Thirteen asked.

"That I'm an American poor person who immediately needs a cab."

"You lie perfectly in every language, House," Foreman said, shaking his head.

The man returned with their bags shortly after and the three of them piled into a cab and rode for thirty minutes to suburban Tokyo. House told the driver to stop and he left them at a two-story house with a balcony in front. There, House's cell rung. Not recognizing the number, he picked it up.

"Whoever you are, speak."

"House?" He may not have known the number, but the voice he had recently grown to know. It was the patient's mysterious boyfriend, Agatsuma Soubi. "I forgot to tell you something important."

"Hurry it up. We're at Ritsuka's house." Thirteen and Foreman both looked astonished that House actually his patient's name.

"Is anybody home?" Soubi's voice sounded somewhat urgent.

House looked closed at the house and saw a young woman peering through the curtains, only to hide behind them when she caught him looking at her.

"Yeah a woman," He responded. "It looks like… black hair… young…" He looked harder. "An odd expression on her face."

"Get out of there," Soubi hissed. "That's Ritsuka's mother. She's crazy. Her name is Misaki, she's Ritsuka's mother, and she beats the crap out of him almost everyday."

"And what do you suggest we do?"

"Go to my house. My eccentric friend might be there around this time of day but just tell him I sent you."

House hung the phone and told Foreman and Thirteen to get back in the cab.

"I need this address," House said to the driver in Japanese and handed him the note with Soubi's address scribbled on it.

The driver stared at him long and hard, "That's only three miles away! Can't you just walk?!"

"Sorry," House shrugged. "I've got a bum leg."

* * *

"Who was that?" Ritsuka mumbled, as he had just been pulled out of his coma. Chase was still in the room and monitoring Ritsuka. His mind was still in a fog but he recognized the hospital. He remembered previously being in a room with Doctor Foreman testing him and then…nothing. He was incoherent and afraid, almost shaking with an unexplained fear.

"Calm down, Ritsuka," He felt a hand on his shoulder and a soothing voice in his ear and immediately relaxed. "What happened?"

Chase glanced down at him and spoke to Soubi.

"You blacked out and had a seizure and a heart attack. They need to do a scan of your brain and then they'll start you on medication."

Ritsuka nodded and sat up as the rest of the medication dissolved from his system and stretched. "How long has it been?"

"A day or so," Soubi answered.

Chase looked up from his clipboard and said something that Ritsuka made out as, "I am going to need you to sign some papers. There is a nurse waiting out there." He pointed to the nurse's station down the hallway.

"I'll be back soon," Soubi told him as he left.

"You know," Ritsuka started, speaking to Chase in slightly broken, heavily accented English. "I may understand more than he gave me credit for."

Chase turned to him, clearly surprised, "So you know what I've been talking about this entire time?"

"Well, no. Not all the time. I understand more than when I first come here, though. You are doctor Chase, yes?"

"Correct," Chase knelt down to his height. "I need to ask you something important, Ritsuka. Let me know if you do not understand what I am saying."

"What is it?" Ritsuka asked, generally curious.

"Is Soubi ever… abusive towards you? Maybe he hits you… or touches you in a place you don't want to be touched?"

It took Ritsuka a long moment to process what the doctor had said. His short temper immediately sparked at the accusation of the one person he (dare he say it) cared for the most _abusing _him.

"No!" He snapped. "Of course not! He would never do anything to me! He hates what my mother did on me!"

"I have to ask, but what does your mother do to you?"

Ritsuka thought about it for a long moment. "She-she beats me. I am not her Ritsuka. I am not the one she wants."

* * *

"Which apartment is it?" Thirteen asked, trying to get a look at the note that House had.

"Third one, fourth floor," He replied, as he casually hobbled into the complex.

"What do we expect to find by coming here?" Foreman's voice showed annoyance.

"Our patience spends so much time here," House explained. "That our trigger could be here and the boyfriend has the same thing." He didn't add on why, if he did, Soubi wasn't showing any medical symptoms. According to his medical records, he had never been sick. Or hurt. That wasn't possible, so he must have been able to self-heal.

The three made it up four flights of stairs slowly, due to House's disability.

"This is… a college flat?! He's- he's in _college_?!" Thirteen exclaimed as she read the plaque posted at the top of the last flight of stairs. House glared at her as he struggled up the last few steps, his breathing heavy from trying to keep up with his lackeys for four flights of hell.

"Guess so," Foreman agreed, also waiting for his boss. "You know, there _was_ an elevator on the first floor."

"I knew that," House led the way to the third door on left. He fumbled with the keys Soubi gave him for a while before finding the right one. He opened the door to find a light green haired young man standing in the middle of the room.

"Who the hell are you?!" They both said in two different languages.

* * *

"Which test must be done?" Ritsuka asked the Australian doctor. His eyes focused on the scene out in the hallway, rather than on the man. A young nurse was talking to Soubi at the nurses' station. She was leaning towards him with a smile on her face, obviously flirting with him. As he observed them, Ritsuka felt an unexpected pang of jealousy.

"A scan of your brain. That's it," Chase's gaze followed his.

"Could you tell him to come back inside?" Ritsuka requested, blushing.

"Yes, of course," Chase laughed. "You need to go in for the scan, anyways."

* * *

"Get out of here!" The strange man yelled. "Why are you here?!"

Thirteen and Foreman glanced at each other, thoroughly confused. House pushed in front of the two to talk to him.

"Gregory House," He stated in Japanese with a sly expression. "Chief of crime investigation in New Jersey."

"Oh dear god, what has he done _now_?!"

"Who is he and who are you to him?" House was doing his usual lying routine.

"Actually this isn't my house. It's Agatsuma Soubi's. I'm… uh, house sitting for him. I'm Kio, his only friend."

"He said you might be here when he called me to warn me about Ritsuka's mother," House said innocently.

"Wait… what?"

"I'm a doctor. Aoyagi Ritsuka collapsed while on a school field trip. Your friend brought him to the hospital and I'm here to test for potential triggers of what happened. We may have to ask you a couple questions. Do you speak English?"

"Um… some."

"Hey you two!" House called to Foreman and Thirteen, who were curiously going through the cabinets in the tiny kitchen. Soubi's flat didn't consist of much. There were three rooms; a small bedroom, a bathroom, and the main room. Not much furniture was present, and about half of it consisted of books.

"Thirteen, ask him questions. Foreman, come with me," House ordered. He led the way into the kitchen and pointed Foreman to the cabinets and he himself began to go through the mail as they listened to Thirteen and Kio.

"You don't live here, correct?" Thirteen asked.

"I do not."

House tuned out the rest of the questioning and returned to Soubi's mail. Seven letters dated in the past five days were all from Minami Ritsu and had some very… suggestive remarks in it. Foreman had gathered samples from the main room and the two were just about to move on to the rest of the flat.

That is until House's phone rang yet again.

"House? This is Chase. Ritsuka's brain is inflamed but there's… another symptom…"

* * *

Sorry for the delay. I've had quite a lot of suprises this week (like a creepy kid saying 'i love you' to me XC ) but, for the record, this chapter is long-ish.

Also, why do my crossovers get more reviews than my regular stories. (not like I'm complaining or anything XD )

keep reviewing,

Wolfie


	7. Chapter 7: Memoryless

_**Chapter seven: Memoryless**_

"Ritsuka, this machine is going to scan your brain. I need you to stay very still and just say something if anything happens," Ritsuka's ears picked up at the sound of Doctor Chase's voice speaking through the microphone in plain and simple English.

Ritsuka sat up on the small metal slab-like plate that was connected to the scanning machine. "Okay. I have done this before. I just lay down, yes?"

"That's right. When have you done this before?"

"A couple years back," Ritsuka glanced up at the window where Chase and presumably Soubi were watching as he laid back down on the cold . "Is Soubi up with you?"

"Yes. The radiation is too much for anybody to be down their with you."

Ritsuka relaxed, satisfied with Chase's answer.

After a couple minutes of pacing the length of the small observation room, Soubi finally took to watching Ritsuka from the spot next to Chase.

"Alright Ritsuka, I'm starting the scan. Hold still for a couple minutes. I'll tell you when you can move next."

"Wow…" Soubi heard Chase murmur soon.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Soubi asked him as he glanced over at the screen.

Chase motioned to the image on the screen. "That's Ritsuka's brain. The red and orange are the inflamed portions."

The picture was a digitally splotched mess of red and orange, as Soubi observed. "So, does that confirm a diagnosis?"

Chase began to stand to leave, "Yeah, it confirms viral encephalitis. We'll start him on meds as soon as we can."

"Hey," Soubi said, pointing to the monitor again, seeing that it had changed dramatically. "What's that mean?"

"Oh my God…" Chase stared at the image and then at the large machine outside the observing window.

"What? What happened?!"

"I have no clue," Chase said. He dashed out of the room, and Soubi followed him. Chase pulled the metal tray out of the small tube-like scanning machine, and tapped Ritsuka on the shoulder. He didn't respond.

"Has he…fainted?" Soubi stepped forward.

Ritsuka's eyes blinked open at the sound of the Fighter's voice. He looked first at Chase and then at Soubi and, without sitting up, stuttered, "W-where am I?"

* * *

"What's the new symptom?" In the background, House could still hear Thirteen questioning Kio. Quietly, he moved from the main room into the master bedroom and shut the door behind him.

"He's got mild dementia. He fainted while we were scanning his brain. Woke up with no memory of us prepping him for the scan or of it. The latest memory he has is speaking to me, directly before," Chase informed him from the other line. "You three need to get back here ASAP. Whatever he has, its only getting worse."

House hung up his cell, leaning against the bed as he thought about the symptoms. Stroking, seizures, fevers, passing out, extreme fatigue, swollen brain, and now dementia?! House shook his head, and limped to the closet.

"He's an art major," Forman said, interrupting his thoughts. "All you're going to find in there are art supplies. I already checked them out. They have nothing poisonous in them and they aren't lead based either."

House nodded. Something told him that he wasn't going to find anything in Soubi's apartment that was related to the case. "Tell Thirteen to shut the hyper college kid up and lets go to the kid's house. Dementia just got added as a symptom and his brain is inflamed. We need to get back as soon as possible."

"How much did I forget?" Ritsuka asked Soubi, who still hadn't left his side ever since waking up with no memory. He was laying with his back to him, and had refused to talk to him. Tears silently streamed down his face, something he did not want the man to know.

"Not much," Ritsuka felt Soubi lay a hand on his shoulder. "What's wrong?"

"Everything," Ritsuka whispered. Drops of water fell onto the sheet he was laying on, but he did nothing to stop them.

"Come on, Ritsuka, look at me."

He shook his head. He refused to look at Soubi, the man who loved him unconditionally. He couldn't see him like this, torn in two and broken into pieces. He whimpered slightly and a sob shook his body.

The next thing Ritsuka knew, Soubi had crawled into the bed next to him and took him in his arms. Ritsuka sobbed into his chest, clutching at the man's shirt tightly. Soubi leaned down and kissed the top of each little kitten ear gently. He rested his head on Ritsuka's and pulled him into his lap, holding him close.

Ritsuka started to quiet down after awhile and he felt Soubi stroke his head softly as he spoke, "Now can you tell me why you're crying?"

He looked up at him and wiped the remaining tears from his face, "I'm scared to forget."

Soubi sighed and shifted his position to make Ritsuka more comfortable, "Do you know what dementia is?"

Ritsuka shook his head.

"Its when you forget completely what happened an hour or two before. It's a symptom. Its nothing like what happened two years ago."

Something about that lightened Ritsuka's mood somewhat. He smiled a little and curled into Soubi's chest.

* * *

"Damn it," Thirteen huffed as she gave the front door to the Aoyagi Household a final good kick. "I. Can't. Get. In." She was out of breath from trying to break the door open.

"Sit down before we have a medical emergency on our hands," Foreman instructed her, guiding her to a place she could sit down. "The door isn't going to give, House."

House grinned a cunning smile and reached into his bag, pulling out a crowbar. "It's breaking and entering time!" He said as he sung to crowbar into the window next to the door. It shattered with an ear piercing sound that only the three would hear since they had seen Ritsuka's mother leave.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Foreman yelled at House.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" House shrugged as he reached into the broken window and felt around for a moment. "I'm getting us inside." An audible click was heard and House pushed the door open from the inside.

"Isn't she going to wonder who broke the window?" Thirteen questioned as she cautiously placed a foot inside.

"Who cares? Foreman, come with me upstairs to the kid's room. Thirteen, you look around the kitchen and everywhere else. Don't bag anything because we don't have the time to test anything. Report anything suspicious back to me."

House left her and cursed silently to himself as soon as he saw the stairs.

* * *

"Are you sure we're supposed to be doing this?" Ritsuka said as Soubi pulled him into a supply closet. To try to cheer Ritsuka up, he was going to take him outside but to do that they'd have to dodge the doctors.

"No," Soubi replied, looking out into the hallway. "In fact, I know we're not supposed to be doing this."

"You never follow the rules, do you?" Ritsuka sighed. Soubi had grabbed his wrist once again and was headed down the hallway.

* * *

"The door is locked," Foreman told House. They stood in front of the only room on the top floor other than the bathroom.

"Break it open," House ordered, standing back. Foreman started to back up and brace himself to kick open the door, but House suddenly thought of something. "Wait!" He dug into his coat pocket and produced Soubi's forgotten key ring. "This probably could have saved us from breaking that glass, too. God, Foreman, why'd you tell me to do that?"

Foreman rolled his eyes at House and took the key ring. Only three keys were on it, and the second one Foreman tried worked. He twisted it open and the two stood inside of an off white painted room.

Foreman stepped inside, attempting to only focus on the task before him. At first glance the room looked bland, as it was painted white with not very much furniture other than a desk, a bed, and a bookcase. But, in only a few seconds, the room came to life. An entrance to the balcony gave illumination to the room, light coming from the evening light outside. Photos lined much of the wall-space around the desk and books were piled in the far left corner. Cut out pictured lay in the middle of the floor, along with some scraps of paper and what looked like a small photo album.

House was already inside, curiously picking up a red shirt that had been strewn on the floor. He held it to his nose and inquisitively sniffed it.

Foreman raised an eyebrow, "What the hell are you doing?"

"Either the kid smokes, wears clothes way too big for him, and has been getting high off of paint, or the boyfriend's been sleeping over," House observed and tossed the shirt back onto the floor. Foreman watched him sit on the bed and rub his leg a little, then move to look at the framed picture on the bed stand.

Foreman decided to go through the desk drawers but was distracted by the photographs on the wall. Most were of Ritsuka and Soubi. A small percentage were of a pink haired girl with big breasts, others a short naïve looking two-toned haired boy, and some of a mischievous looking pair of boys.

"They really seem to like each other, huh?" Foreman asked House, finally breaking the silence.

"Guess so. This is another picture of them. Looks recent," House brought the frame closer to his eyes and studied it.

"What is it?" Foreman replied, continuing to pull things out of the drawers.

"He's exhibiting a symptom in this," House's voice could barely be heard. "But I can't tell what it is…"

Foreman found nothing interesting in the desk, so he moved to the nightstand. He pulled out a medical kit and opened it, finding directions written in Japanese and used up supplies.

"Can you read this?" Foreman pushed the kit's handwritten directions to House. He glared at him and then leaned over to glance at the directions.

"They're just directions to dress a wound. It's written by Soubi."

"How do you know that?"

"He signed it. He also said 'If she gets any worse, come to me' I'm guessing that 'she' is Ritsuka's mother. Look at this photo and tell me what you see."

"Symptom wise?" He questioned, receiving another glare from House. He looked at the picture of Ritsuka and Soubi that was shoved into his hands. "Soubi's taking the picture," He started off, unsure of what House wanted him to say.

"His eyes, idiot, look at his eyes."

Foreman peered closer, and finally realized what House was trying to make him see, "His pupils are dilated."

"Bingo!" House shouted sarcastically. "And what does that mean?"

Foreman took in the rest of the picture, looking closely for symptoms. "His ears are let down a little and there's an odd expression on his face. He's in pain."

"Right again. What kind of pain?"

Foreman looked at him, puzzled.

"Come one, you're a neurologist, you should be able to get this right!"

Foreman thought for another moment. A light suddenly went on in his head, "A headache. It fits with the current symptoms. An enlarged brain means a headache."

* * *

"Are you warm enough?" Soubi questioned Ritsuka, as he set a plate of food down in front of him. Ritsuka blushed and pulled Soubi's coat tighter around him.

"I'm fine but aren't you cold?" He had Soubi's coat and it was the beginning of fall, making it a little cold out. He had been sitting at a picnic table just outside of the hospital alone for about five minutes as Soubi went to go get food.

The Fighter placed an arm around him and pulled him a little bit closer, "I'm fine. You should eat, although I warn you the food is pretty gross."

Ritsuka smiled, feeling unusually happy at Soubi's companionship.

* * *

Thirteen eyed the contents of the fridge one last time and wrote down the last few items. There were a couple of odd, questionable items but nothing obviously deadly. She was about to check the freezer when she heard a recognizable click from the door. Thirteen froze, eyes wide.

"Someone's here," She yelled just loud enough to be heard. A black haired young woman stood in the doorway, meeting her gaze. Her eyes abruptly became psychotic and she yelled something that Thirteen couldn't understand. She was quick and had come at Thirteen quick, so quick that she hadn't even seen her grab the knife.

Thirteen couldn't even block before she had stabbed her in the right leg with the blade. "House!" She screamed as she crouched down, grabbing her leg and feeling the harsh pain. "Eric!"

"Translate this," Foreman told House, bringing the scrapbook over to him. Inside the cover a three-line inscription was written in what Foreman presumed to be Ritsuka's handwriting.

"Is that an order?" House said sarcastically. "The first line is just 'Soubi' and a dash. The second is 'happy birthday. I know this isn't much but I spent a lot of time on it. I hope you like it'. The third line is Ritsuka's signature."

Foreman tried to take it from him but House held firmly. "What is it now?" He sighed.

House grinned, "I found us another symptom. Can you guess what it is?"

"I don't read Japanese, House."

"The handwriting looks messier than other samples I saw around the room. It means he's having wrist problems-"

"Who the hell are you?! Did you take my Ritsuka?!" A loud woman cried in Japanese from down stairs. _That must be his mother_, House thought as he turned to look down the hallway.

Another loud sound was made, like the sound of something being thrust into something else. Something like a knife into skin…

"House! Eric!" Thirteen screamed, confirming House's initial thoughts. Foreman was obviously panicking. He ran to the door, only to be blocked by House.

"No," He said.

"What's wrong with you?! She just got stabbed!" Foreman tried to push House out of the way but instead he received House's cane to the chest.

"You can't just go down there with no plan and be the hero! It doesn't work that way, idiot! You get Thirteen and I'll distract the woman."

* * *

"Ritsuka? Are you okay?"

Ritsuka barely heard Soubi. He felt what he had just eaten coming back up. He closed his eyes and then got up, running as quick as he could to the nearest trashcan. He vomited twice and then stumbled a few feet.

His feet just weren't cooperating with his mind and he looked like an idiot stumbling around. His vision was ebbing away, dark spots forming at the edges. He felt someone catch him just before he fainted and heard Soubi yell out for a doctor. Then he was gone.

* * *

"Who are you?!" The woman yowled at House as he limped down the stairs.

"So you're the bitch who beats up her own son?" House blocked a blow aimed at him with his cane. His Japanese was unbelievably good so she clearly understood him. "You know I ought to turn you into the police. Maybe I will. Who knows?"

Foreman reached Thirteen and examined her leg for a moment. The blade was still in her flesh, which was probably the best since it was plugging the blood from coming out.

"Eric," She gasped. "Get this thing out, please."

"You know as well as I do I can't do that. I'll help you walk," Foreman pulled her up and she leaned heavily against him. The crazed woman whipped around and raised another weapon towards Foreman, only to be hit over the head by a large wooden stick like thing.

"Hurry it up!" House told them. Foreman and Thirteen had made it up every step except three when Thirteen slipped and fell with a scream of pain. Forman yanked her up the last couple steps rather roughly and dragged her down the hallway. House was right behind them and slammed the door behind the three of them when they safely got into Ritsuka's room.

Foreman panted and nearly collapsed as he helped Thirteen down on the bed. She was nearly unconscious and moaned as she rolled over.

"What are we going to do?" Foreman asked House worriedly.

House had dug out the first-aid kit and had a pair of latex gloves from it on, "What do you think? We're going to fix her."

* * *

**Why hello thar.**

When you're done with this chapter review and go vote on my poll, please.

Oh and ...

**HAHA**

**I'm the only one who knows the final diagnosis!**

Sorry.

I had to say it.

Go vote, please!

~Wolfie


	8. Chapter 8: Insanity

_Chapter eight: Insanity_

Thirteen leaned heavily on Foreman as they and House boarded the plane back to Jersey. They had dressed the wound and cleaned it, but they had to get back to the hospital before they could do anything more. The airport wouldn't let them fly with a person in desperate need for medical attention on board, so they would need to act like nothing was wrong. Thirteen was still in pain, although Foreman and House had safely gotten the blade out and stopped the bleeding.

Thirteen slumped in her seat, groaning. She hadn't spoken more than a few words since the incident, excluding constant sounds of pain.

About halfway into the flight, House had received a phone call from Chase telling him that Ritsuka had fainted after throwing up. House exchanged symptoms with him, telling him of the headaches and the wrist problems. He didn't mention anything about Thirteen, fearing that somebody aboard may over hear.

* * *

Ritsuka held the large bucket close to himself as his body finally decided to take a break from throwing up. He rested his head on the pillow, gasping for air. He had to be done. There was nothing left to come out.

He turned out to be wrong. Not a moment later, he was forced to lean forward and retch again.

"Get out of here," Ritsuka said suddenly. Soubi still hadn't left him, and Ritsuka was starting to wonder why.

"…Ritsuka?"

"Get out," He repeated.

"Why?"

"This is terrible. It's so embarrassing. Why don't you just leave?"

Soubi came over to him and rubbed his back lightly. "I'm not going to leave you. Not now, not ever. I'm staying right here, no matter what you say."

Ritsuka wanted to say something but he didn't honestly didn't think that 'thanks' was the right word. He just stayed quiet, not knowing what to say but not wanting to push Soubi away at all.

* * *

As soon as the plane landed, House called Chase to pick them and told him of the current situation.

"What do you mean Thirteen's hurt?" He demanded with his slightly irritating Australian accent.

"I mean that Ritsuka's crazy bitch of a mother stabbed her!" House snapped into the phone. He got a couple of demeaning glances from other people around him for cursing so loud at an airport.

"God, is she okay?" Chase responded after a few moments of silence.

"No. Get here as quickly as possible."

Not more than an hour later, the four of arrived at the hospital. Thirteen was taken away for her injury to be tended to when they reached the front doors. Soubi was leaning against the receptionist desk in the entry room for him, waiting.

"I need to talk to you," He said as House reached him.

"Can't you just wait a little while?" House asked stubbornly. He had at least wanted to get back to his office before being confronted.

"Your boss told me you'd be down here."

Cuddy was definitely going to pay for that. "What is it?"

"Ritsuka's acting strangely."

* * *

Ritsuka had told Soubi that his head hurt and _he felt a little odd_ . Before he had gone to go talk to the dean, Lisa Cuddy, Soubi had simply told him to go back to sleep. Soubi had stayed with him until he had fallen back into a slumber and then had silently slipped away.

Cuddy had told him to wait by the entrance and that House would be back very soon. So he'd done just that. Soubi was even more worried about Ritsuka now. His outbursts and quick switch in mood threw Soubi completely off. Ritsuka's mind was working like a woman on PMS. Or that's at least what it reminded Soubi of. Either way, it wasn't good.

"Strangely?" House said with a sarcastic tone. He started to walk with Foreman at his side. Soubi followed them.

"Mood swings. You know, like that boss of yours."

That got House's attention. Foreman smirked at his reaction as House stopped and turned to him.

"Good god, that bad?"

Soubi was about to reply when an announcement sounded over the intercom. It turned out to be was an announcement to any a doctor to get a suicidal mental patient off the roof.

"Yeah. Are we going to your office?"

"No, I'm going to go see him. You're coming with me," House turned down a familiar hallway and stopped dead in his tracks about halfway down. "Where'd he go?"

Soubi looked where he was looking and saw Ritsuka's bed through the clear glass. It was his bed… Minus Ritsuka.

The announcement played over the intercom again.

This time it gave a description of the person on the roof; about thirteen, close to five feet tall, male, short black hair… not speaking English…

And _this_ time the two doctors and the Fighter listened to the voice.

It hit all of them at once. House glanced at Foreman, threw his cane aside, and took off at what looked to be a pained run. Soubi was way ahead of him in a second, only instinct guiding him to the roof.

There was already a crowd gathering near the edge of the roof. Soubi shoved his way through, knocking down several doctors in the process.

"Who the hell do you think you are?!" Somebody yelled as he got to the edge.

Soubi pointed to Ritsuka, who was wondering dangerously close to the brick railing of the building, "I'm the closest person he has to family."

The man fell silent and Soubi continued towards Ritsuka at a cautious pace. He was walking around in circles, obviously hallucinating and muttering something in Japanese.

"Ritsuka?" Soubi said as he approached him. Ritsuka looked straight at him with wide, delusional eyes.

"M-mom!" Ritsuka started to back away. He stumbled backwards until he was backed up against the five brick high railing that bordered the perimeter of the roof. "Please don't hit me again!" He raised his hands in front of his face, defending himself from an imaginary attacker.

"Ritsuka, I'm not your mother. It's me. Soubi. Come here. I promise I won't hurt you."

"What?" Ritsuka said, looking behind him and down at the streets ten stories below. "If I do it, you'll love me again? I'll do it if you tell me that you love me, mom." He started to hoist himself up on the ledge.

"Ritsuka, no. You don't want to do that. Come down here," Soubi offered his hand out to Ritsuka. He had to stop Ritsuka. If Ritsuka died, Soubi would have no reason to live. _Don't think_, he told himself over and over. _Just stop him._

"Just say it, please, mother. Please. No! Don't hit me like that!" Ritsuka flinched as if being hit. "I'll do it! I'll do it!"

Ritsuka whipped around but Soubi grabbed his arm and looked straight into his eyes. He held firmly onto his arm and spoke slowly and sternly, "Ritsuka, no."

Soubi could've sworn that he saw a spark of recognition there in the depths of Ritsuka's eyes, and he let go of his arm. "Now come back down here."

Ritsuka looked at him, the spark gone and replaced by new insanity

-And then leaned back and fell.

* * *

**SURPRISE CHAPTER ENDING WHUT.**

review and go vote on my poll!

~Wolfie

PS I'M THE EVIL CLIFFHANGER WOMAN!! FEAR ME!!


	9. Chapter 9: fall

_**Chapter nine: Fall**_

Soubi rushed forward, closing in the last few steps between him and the edge of the roof. Time seemed to move slowly. The rest of the crowd gasped and Foreman ran to the edge with House closely on his heels.

It was quick. Really, it was a matter of seconds, though it felt like hours to the Fighter. Soubi reached forward almost instinctively and felt material slide against his fingertips. Shocked, he closed his fingers around it and felt a dead weight in his hand.

He pulled the dangling mass up and up onto the ledge. It was amazing. He had actually caught Ritsuka. The boy was at first curled into a tight, unmoving ball then suddenly he started screaming and flailing. Soubi had to hold Ritsuka down to keep him from doing anything stupid again.

Meanwhile, House addressed the crowd. "What the hell are you all doing just standing there?!" He yelled, pointing to the stairwell. "One of you idiot doctors get me fifteen grams of a lithium tranquilizer!" Two doctors in the back rushed off, only to return less than two minutes afterward.

Soubi was still struggling with Ritsuka. He was vicious, growling and biting him like some sort of animal. He landing a couple blows on him and sunk his teeth into the man, drawing Soubi's blood.

He looked up to see House standing above the two. "Hold him down," House told him. "Get him flat on his back. You'll have to inject the drug."

"Are you kidding me?!" Soubi got in between trying to keep a very violent Ritsuka from hurting anyone.

"Just do it!"

Soubi managed to glare at him and then fought Ritsuka to the ground. He kicked and scratched at the older male, but Soubi overpowered him by quite a lot. He got on top of him, straddling him.

"Give me the god damn drug!" He shouted as Ritsuka's nails abruptly scratched his face.

House held up the needle and tapped it once to get the medication going. "Stick him hard in the arm. I can only pray to the god that I don't believe in that you know where to inject," He retorted, giving Soubi the needle.

Without hesitation, Soubi thrust the drug into a still struggling Ritsuka's arm and pushed down on the other end. The fluid emptied into Ritsuka's bloodstream, leaving the syringe drained. The teen immediately went limp beneath him. His eyes were closed and he fell into a deep sleep.

* * *

The symptoms were adding up. House was frustrated now. What could've induced the psychosis?

"Go," House snapped as he finished writing down the last symptom. There were a good amount of them on the board now.

"Hyperthyroidism," Chase spoke up. "With anemia. It explains most of the symptoms."

"But not the psychosis. Sarcoidosis fits better," Foreman put in, glancing at Thirteen's empty seat beside him.

"Hyperthyroidism is stupid. But you're not completely off. The anemia is a possibility. Foreman, go test for Sarcoidosis. It would explain almost everything. Chase, go do a colonoscopy and check for a drop in hematocrit," House ordered. He limped over to his desk chair and sat down, placing his feet up on the table. He then stared at the long list of symptoms. "And keep him awake," He added to Chase without taking his eyes off the board.

* * *

Soubi glanced down at the kitten-like boy in his arms. Ritsuka was asleep, holding tightly onto Soubi's shirt. Every time he or somebody else tried to remove Ritsuka from him the Sacrifice would squirm in his sleep and end up even closer to the other.

Ritsuka was curled up in Soubi's lap, apparently happy and content there. He sighed quietly and his tail swished against the man's legs. Soubi smiled and ran his hands through the child's silky black hair.

"Ritsuka," He whispered quietly. "I hope that was just a hallucination…" Had he _really_ just said that? Of course it had been a delusion! Ritsuka had thought Soubi was his mother for God's sake! There was no way that Ritsuka would actually try to commit suicide!

Suicide…

Suicide…

There that word was. Soubi couldn't hide it from himself anymore. Ritsuka had attempted suicide. He had tried to kill himself. He might've been delirious but it was still an attempt at death.

He would've been dead if Soubi hadn't caught him.

It was purely luck that he had caught him. He hadn't tried hard enough. He could've reasoned Ritsuka into not doing what he had done. He could've prevented it but he hadn't.

Now Soubi sat with Ritsuka on his lap feeling guiltier than ever. He fingered one of Ritsuka's soft cat ears. _I must be going crazy_, he thought to himself. _Was there really a way I could've prevented that?_

The drugs had worked well. It took a couple of more hours until Soubi finally saw Ritsuka's eyes flutter open. He looked confused for a moment as he took note of his current position.

"Oh my god!" He yelled suddenly. He tried to sit up but lost his balance and was sent somersaulting to the floor. He was up on his feet in a second, staring at him. Luckily, the insane look was gone from his wide eyes, only shock and confusion remaining. "What the hell happened?! Why do I feel like I just came back from the dead?! And what the fuck happened to you?!"

Soubi winced at his choice of a metaphor. He glanced down at his arms, looking at the bandages that covered them. After subduing Ritsuka, Lisa Cuddy had come to the room and helped him with where Ritsuka had injured him. She seemed quite friendly to him, but he thought nothing of it.

"Well are you going to explain what happened? Why does my mind feel so fuzzy and odd, like I just did something incredibly stupid?"

"Because you did," Soubi offered quietly. "I guess your subconscious remembers it but your mind doesn't."

"Wh-what… Did I do that?" Ritsuka pointed to the bandage on the Fighter's forehead. "I want to know what I tried to do."

Soubi nodded sadly, "You left and went up to the roof when I went to go see House. When I got up there, you were wandering in circles. I tried to talk to you but you thought I was your mother. You got up on the ledge, said something about her loving you, and jumped."

Ritsuka sat on the edge of the bed, grasping onto the footboard. "You mind telling me how I didn't end up killing myself?" He finally said after awhile.

"I caught you."

"You what?!"

"I caught you," Soubi repeated. "I can see you're back to normal now."

Ritsuka was quiet for a long time. He closed his eyes and rocked back and forth on his hips. "I don't know what to say… There's something I've been wanting to tell you…" He flushed. "This is really hard for me to say but…I-!"

A nurse opened the door suddenly. "Ritsuka has visitors," She growled shoving two boys into the room and slamming the door. Soubi and Ritsuka both recognized them immediately.

"We were going to come earlier," Natsou started.

"But Ritsuka's teacher wouldn't let us," Yoji chimed in with a laugh. "Anyways, we heard. Why'd you try to off yourself, Ritsuka?"

"Was it because of your mom? Or something else? What'd it feel like?" Natsou put in.

"Both of you shut up," Soubi muttered to them under his breath.

Yoji pouted, "Aw, come on all we want is to know!"

It was too late anyways. "I didn't _try_ to do anything!" Ritsuka snapped. "I apparently went all crazy and jumped because I thought Soubi was my mother!"

"Now _there's _an odd mistake!" Yoji started laughing again, joined soon by Natsou.

Another knock sounded at the door and Chase and House entered.

"Who are those two?" Natsou whispered to Yoji. He said something else to him that Soubi couldn't quite catch and then they both snickered again.

"Visitors?" Chase guessed. "Ritsuka's friends?" Well, Soubi couldn't exactly blame him for thinking that was strange. The two did look and act awfully eccentric.

"Not exactly…" He trailed off.

"I'm Yoji and that's Natsou!" Yoji said, running up and grabbing one of Chase's arms. Soubi mentally slapped himself. He had forgotten they could perfectly speak English.

"We don't feel any pain!" Natsou smiled happily.

"Natsou!" Soubi hissed. He looked at Ritsuka, who had been watching the whole exchange with interest.

"Really?" House asked thoughtfully, stepping forward.

"Its true!" Yoji boasted proudly. "You can hit us and we won't feel it!"

"What if I do this?" House grasped onto both of Yoji's cat ears and yanked hard. Yoji's expression didn't so much as even change. "Go get the colonoscopy ready," He told an astonished Chase, who nodded and left.

"I know what you're going to ask. They're both experiments. Neither feel anything. Yoji's the Sacrifice and Natsou is the Fighter. The nerve center in their brain was shut off when they were created."

"Soubi!" Natsou and Yoji shouted at once. Ritsuka looked like he couldn't believe Soubi could be so careless.

"I'll explain later, Ritsuka. Natsou, Yoji, go away for awhile," The two of them moped but obeyed Soubi.

"We have to do a colonoscopy," House told him in Japanese so that Ritsuka could understand.

"What's that?" Ritsuka questioned.

"We stick a tube up your ass and feel around for awhile. Sorry, it kinda sucks."

That sounded pretty painful. It would hurt Ritsuka even more since, unlike Soubi, he was a virgin and had never had anything stuck up there. Something worried Soubi about this procedure, though.

"And what about his ears?" He asked uncertainly.

"They'll still be there, stupid. Now lets get this over with before Cuddy finds out."

* * *

"AHHHHH!!" Ritsuka screamed out as Chase pushed the tube farther in. He grasped onto Soubi's arms, pain coursing through his entire body. He gasped for air and tried to withstand the pain.

"Ritsuka," The older male said soothingly, reaching up and stroking Ritsuka's head. The boy could hear Chase saying something in the background but his mind was too preoccupied to translate it. Soubi responded for him and then leaned down to speak softly into Ritsuka's ear, "They want you to relax."

"I'm trying to!" Ritsuka cried. "It's not that easy! Is this what it'll feel like to lose my ears?!"

Soubi laughed, "No. It's a lot more, should I say, pleasurable?"

Ritsuka whimpered, holding onto Soubi even tighter. A new wave of pain hit him and shook his body. He closed his eyes tightly and bit his lip to stop from screaming although this tactic proved to be quite unsuccessful.

"Listen, Ritsuka," Ritsuka felt Soubi move closer to him. "When we get back home, if you keep you're grades up I'll bet your mother will let you stay a friend for a few nights. You could give her your cell number and we could go someplace for a while."

"Wh-what?" Ritsuka looked up into his crystal blue eyes. He was temporary distracted, which was probably Soubi's plan.

He smiled at him, "I'll take you down to the sea and we'll stay for a few days on the coast. It'll be on a break we both have, so neither one of us will have classes."

Soubi's soft voice fell away as House exclaimed something to Foreman. Soubi stared at them and said something in English that sounded quite offensive. From the obvious tone of their voices, Ritsuka could tell something was terribly wrong.

* * *

House listened to both Foreman's notes and Soubi trying to comfort Ritsuka at once.

"Entering the colon," Foreman stated. House rolled his eyes and watched the screen boredly. Something caught his interest as he did, something that wasn't a sign of neither anemia nor hyperthyroidism.

"Stop!" House ordered, drawing Soubi's attention as well as Foreman's.

"What?" The other doctor asked.

"What do you think?! Look at the screen, dumb ass!" House pointed to the monitor.

Foreman turned to look at the screen. "His colon is enlarged!" He exclaimed.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Soubi demanded.

"It means," House said. "We have to come up with a new prognosis."

* * *

NO CLIFFHANGER THIS TIME!!

Hi everyone!

I put up a new poll and I want you guys to go vote on it :3

Its a poll on which AU story I should write after I'm done with this story.

OH! and remember to review!

`Wolfie


	10. Chapter 10: Unknowns

**_Chapter ten: Unknowns_**

Foreman stood in the doorway to Thirteen's hospital room, watching her sleep. Of course, he should've been home hours ago; as far as House knew, that was where he was. Instead, he had gone to talk to Thirteen about the case. They had ended up chatting for an hour or two.

Foreman had made a horrible mistake when he had fired Thirteen. He was still in love with her. Nothing could change that although she probably didn't feel the same way.

Shaking his head, Foreman shut the clear glass door and walked away.

* * *

"I can't wait to get out of here," Ritsuka told Soubi. They had been moved to a different room from the previous day. The room the two were currently in felt somewhat more comfortable. The walls were actually painted non-pastel colour, a medium brown and also had a few paintings hanging on them. There was a couch on the right wall, which gave Soubi a place to sleep, along with a lamp on a nightstand and a coffee table. Natsou and Yoji had brought a bag that contained most of Soubi's stuff.

"Why is that, Ritsuka?" Soubi smiled at him as he towelled off his hair. He'd just showered and had come back out to find Ritsuka sitting on the couch, reading through his assignments that Yuiko had brought.

"I hate being kept up in one place with a bunch of people poking needles into me. What are in these things anyways?" Ritsuka raised his hand where an IV needle branched off to a couple different medication bags.

Soubi came over to his bed and looked at the labels on IVs. "One of them is an anti-psychotic drug called Lithium and the other is an anticonvulsant to stop your seizures and a corticosteroid to help the inflammation of your brain."

"Anti-psychotic drugs?" Ritsuka laughed coldly. "God, I sound like my mother."

Soubi sighed, "Ritsuka, you're nothing like her."

"Really? I was hallucinating just like her! Nothing could've made me realize it wasn't real! I even hurt you, dammit!"

The older man moved beside him and captured his lips with his own, preventing him from saying anything more. Ritsuka had forgotten what he was going to say, anyways, so it didn't matter. He went limp and placed his arms around the other, giving in.

"Are you suicidal? Soubi said after they broke apart.

"No, but I-!"

Soubi put a finger to his lips silencing him once again, "You're a pacifist, correct? Therefore, you don't use violence, am I right?"

Ritsuka nodded.

"Would you normally mistake me for your mother?"

Resting his head on Soubi's shoulder, Ritsuka shook his head and he started to see what Soubi was trying to make him realize.

"You are nothing like your mother. You may have tried to jump off a building, but you were hallucinating when you did so. Its called delirium, I looked it up. Delirium is a temporary state of psychosis that is a symptom. It doesn't mean you're crazy."

Ritsuka and Soubi sat for a moment, Ritsuka in Soubi's arms, and Soubi gently stroking the boy's head. He leaned down and whispered those three sweet words that Ritsuka had needed to hear. He hung on those three words like it was his life. He used to hate it when the Fighter said them but now, now he felt something else too.

"Ritsuka," Soubi was whispering in his ear again. "What were you trying to say to me before Natsou and Yoji interrupted?"

Ritsuka looked him in the eyes, mustering the courage to say what he was feeling. He had just opened his mouth to speak when the door swung wide on its hinges.

* * *

House twirled his cane as he sat in his office, alone. He stared at the board again and bounced his tennis ball off of it. This had to be the strangest case he had taken on yet. That is, not counting Minami Ritsu's case…

For the first time in years, House recalled Ritsu's case. It had been around seven years ago that the case had been handed to House. He had been traveling to a medical conference with… who had it been? House had to think for a moment before he remembered that it had been Wilson and Cuddy.

The head speaker of the psychological portion of the conference had collapsed during the middle of a presentation about the similarities between butterflies and humans. House had been one of the best doctors called to the conference and therefore, he had to take the speaker's case . Wilson and Cuddy had insisted on helping him.

When running Ritsu's DNA through the hospital's system, the system went haywire. House told them to run the test again and the same thing happened. This time, he took a look at the DNA code that had crashed the system and found a word consisting of letters not normally in a DNA code. Later that night, House had gone into Ritsu's room and demanded an explanation. Ritsu had grudgingly obliged after some pressing from both House and Cuddy. All three of them had been there, House realized. Cuddy and Wilson had come looking for House and found him in the patient's room. That had been a part of the case that had previously escaped from House's memory.

With this part restored, House went out onto the balcony that connect his and Wilson's offices and banged at the other's door with his cane. He was with a patient, most likely his last of the day.

Wilson glared at him from the inside and House entered, took one look at the 'poor helpless' patient and said, "Get out."

This received yet another dirty look from his one and only friend, but Wilson turned to his patient and brought out his schedule. "I have another opening for you tomorrow at three. It's getting late and I think we should wrap this up for the day."

"I'll be back tomorrow at three then," She agreed, gathering her stuff and leaving.

"What is just so important that it couldn't wait until I was done telling her when she is going to die?" Wilson's voice held slight anger in it.

House didn't sit down like usual, instead he came to stand in front of Wilson's desk. "My case. That guy I was telling you about-"

"Complaining to me about," Wilson muttered.

"Yes him. He's a Fighter."

"A _what_?"

"Come on Wilson, you remember. The Minami case. Minami Ritsu. Remember him?"

Wilson looked to be thinking for a moment and then looked back at House with sudden realization. "He's that guy from that school. What was it…? Seven Voices? He called himself a Sacrifice, right?"

"I knew you'd come around. Do you remember how when he thought he was dying he talked all the time about a boy named Agatsuma Soubi?"

Wilson nodded slowly, "He even showed us some pictures. How did he say that kid was? Thirteen? Fourteen?"

House smiled a devious smile, "Come with me."

"Where are you taking me?" Wilson pressed as he followed House down the last long corridor.

"More like _who_."

"I _don't _like surprises," Wilson retorted.

"I'll make sure to never throw you a birthday party," House replied blandly _(_ as they reached the room. The blinds were pulled shut, marking that the two inside wanted their privacy. Ignoring Wilson's protests, he opened the door without even knocking.

"You should really learn to knock," A deep voice sounded to House's right, which was followed by a soft question asked in Japanese by the black haired teenager. Soubi responded with a glance at Wilson. "Who's he?"

"Wilson, this is Agatsuma Soubi and Aoyagi Ritsuka. Fighter and Sacrifice," House explained while ignoring the Fighter's question.

Wilson looked like he was trying to say something but instead whispered frantically to House, "I don't speak any Japanese!"

"I speak English! Who is this idiot?" Soubi insisted hotly.

"I'm James Wilson, head of Oncology here," If Wilson was offended by being called an idiot, he sure didn't show it. "I apologize for my friend's…uh, arrogance. So you're Soubi?"

"Can I ask how you already seem to know everything about me?" Soubi's tone was defensive and he grabbed onto Ritsuka's hand protectively. Ritsuka flinched a few moments later, catching House's eye.

"I worked with doctor House on the Minami Ritsu case. When he thought he wasn't going to make it he talked constantly about you and showed us some pictures."

Soubi's expression suddenly turned to disgust, "Of _course_." He muttered something else in Japanese that House barely caught as 'that nasty son of a bitch rapist'.

Wilson said something else but House wasn't listening. He limped forward, picked up a pen off the coffee table and threw it at Ritsuka. It hit him right in the face. At first he didn't move but after a few seconds he flinched and rubbed his face.

"What was that for?" Ritsuka asked after cussing loudly in Japanese.

"Did you see what I just saw?" House asked Wilson, "Or am I hallucinating again?"

"Hyporeflexia," Wilson told him, "delayed reflexes."

* * *

It was hard for Soubi to hear. It was terrible for him to know that Ritsuka was getting worse. The cause was unknown. If the cause was unknown, the cure was unknown, and the outcome was unknown. Unknown was bad. It meant that there was a fifty-fifty chance the outcome would be bad. With Soubi's luck, there was an even higher chance.

As if on cue, Ritsuka groaned in pain and rubbed his temples. He started to fall forward but Soubi caught him.

"What's wrong?" Soubi questioned quietly.

"Its just my head…and my stomach…"

"Are you going to throw up again?"

"no, no."

In the background, Soubi could hear House talking to Wilson, probably translating. He wanted them out. He didn't know why, he just did.

"Get out. Now. If you've got nothing new to tell me about Ritsuka's condition then get out of here."

House nodded at Wilson and the two of them left in a hurry. Soubi turned his attention back to Ritsuka, who was still holding his head. "I need to get you into bed," He said to the young Sacrifice. "You need to sleep. I'll talk to one of the nurses to see if they can give you something to help your headache." He picked him up and deposited him on the hospital bed.

"This isn't a headache. It's a migraine…"

"I know, Ritsuka, I know," Soubi pulled the covers up to the teen's chest.

"Don't leave me…" Ritsuka was beginning to fade in and out of consciousness.

"I won't. I love you," He pressed his lips to Ritsuka's forehead.

"And Soubi?"

"Yeah?"

"Get some sleep or you'll get sick too."

Soubi laughed, "I will." He made sure that Ritsuka was asleep and then laid down on the couch, finding it quite comfortable. He thought about what Ritsuka had said and smiled to himself again. He'd been right; Soubi hadn't slept since he'd nodded off a couple days ago. Maybe a good night's sleep would take his mind off the mystery of Ritsuka's diagnosis.

* * *

Hello everyone!

Sorry this took so long! The next updates will come very quick, I promise!

Special thanks to my beta summer-flower-girl Thanks for all your hard work!

Review and if you haven't already, go vote on my poll!

I seriously love you all,

Wolfie


	11. Chapter 11: Night

Chapter eleven: Night

"Absolutely not."

"You have to let me," Soubi insisted, almost growling now as he followed Foreman past the nurse's station. "I'm the only one who can answer the questions. To get to him, you have to talk to me."

"I already told you, you are not going to sit in at a team diagnosis meeting!"

Soubi whirled on him, stopping Foreman dead in his tracks. "Listen to me; I am going to sit in on that meeting no matter what you say. The day you took Ritsuka in as a patient, I became a part of your team. I'm not the kind of idiot who stands around waiting for something to happen like a normal friend or somebody. I don't care what it takes to diagnose him. Hell, I'd do anything and if that means sitting in at this damn diagnosing meeting, I'm going to do it even if it means pushing some conceited doctor out of the way."

"You know, you're different from the people most patients have at their bedsides," Foreman stated, continuing to walk.

"Oh _Really_?" Soubi glared at him.

"I can see why House takes an interest in you and this case. Fine, you can come but I don't think House will be happy about it."

* * *

House capped the marker as Foreman entered the room. He had just finished writing the last couple symptoms, hyporeflexia and migraines. He glanced up to see Soubi standing at the back of the room, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed and a particular expression on his face.

"What's he doing here?" House asked Foreman.

Foreman shrugged, "He wanted to come. We have to let him sit in."

"Alright. Take a guess. Let's see who's right." House motioned to the board.

"Um…" Chase started nervously, "Drugs… would explain everything?"

"No. There's no way." Soubi gave him a nasty look.

"For the record, you don't exactly know that."

"No," House shook his head. "Drugs are just stupid. The kid's what like twelve? Thirteen? We went through his room and found no traces of drugs. Plus, this guy's with him _all the time_. Wouldn't he know if he was on drugs? Next time, suggest something less idiotic."

"Crohn's disease," Foreman offered up. "Disease of the colon. It would explain the inflammation, the fatigue, the fevers, seizures, headaches, even the stroke."

"And the psychosis? We can't just ignore the fact that he tried to jump off a building," Chase argued.

"It would have to be something else with Crohn's disease."

"Keep guessing," House told them.

"Subdural hematoma!" Chase piped up suddenly. "His mother is abusive, right? He could have shaken baby syndrome. You know SBS."

"No," Soubi repeated. "His mother wasn't abusive until two years ago. Does subdural hematoma explain the dementia?"

"No…"

"He lost his memory two years ago. Nobody knows what from. He changed completely. Became a completely different person."

A completely different person. That meant something, probably another symptom. People didn't change, symptoms changed people. House's mind worked over this statement as he wrote down personality change as a symptom.

"House," Soubi said, "Cross that off."

"Why?"

"It was part of a spell, I'm positive," Soubi told him in Japanese. "I know a spell with similar effects. You can't say anything to Ritsuka, I haven't told him yet."

Disappointed, House put a single line through the last symptom and stepped back to analyze the board.

"What'd you say to make him do that?" Questioned a shocked Chase.

"I'll never tell," Mischief gleamed in Soubi's eyes, "Anyways, what else could it be?"

"Guillain-Barré syndrome," Foreman put out.

"There's no paralysis and that doesn't have anything to do with the delusions," House objected. "You were half right before. Think a little more obvious."

House's words were met with blank stares. Nobody said anything. They were all lost in thought, trying to think of what House wanted them to. Then, after a few minutes, a look of knowing came on to Chase's face.

"Multiple Sclerosis and Crohn's disease," He concluded. "That's got to be it."

House clapped mockingly, "Well it's about time! Do the MRI tomorrow. Watch for more symptoms. If it is MS other symptoms should present themselves pretty quickly."

* * *

It had been a horrible dream. He had been all alone, and had found himself running through the streets, trying to find someone. He went to Soubi's apartment, only to be forced to watch the man be brutally murdered.

He fought to wake up, and when he had he was in tears and tangled in the blankets. He wiped his tearing eyes and glanced over at where he knew Soubi would be. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw him fast asleep and clearly alive. Ritsuka had apparently been asleep for over twelve hours since the digital clock on the bedside read 2:34 AM and Soubi was wearing different clothes.

Ritsuka smiled, observing that Soubi had fallen asleep while presumably sketching. The lamp on the end table next to the couch was still on and a black leather book lay open on his chest. He also was still wearing his glasses.

Ritsuka carefully lowered himself down from the bed and felt the cold floor brush against the bottoms of his feet. He shivered, feeling how cold it was without the warmth of the blankets and slowly made his way over to Soubi. He kneeled and peered closely at the sleeping man. He looked more at peace, instead of his usual worried, stressed persona.

Blushing lightly, Ritsuka pushed the hair out of Soubi's face and removed his glasses from his face. He was glad to have him in his life, even if he tried to deny it. Soubi had become a source of comfort for him. He was somebody that would remember him even if he disappeared. Sensei would forget, Yayoi would forget, hell, even Yuiko would forget after some time, but Soubi would never forget. Never.

As Ritsuka prepared to get up, Ritsuka's eyes caught the book on Soubi's chest again. Curiously, Ritsuka picked it up and flipped to the front page. The first page was clearly ripped out, but Ritsuka could see where a date and part of a name had been written. It was dated three years back with the letters underneath it read A-O-I and another line read S-E-I. _It must have been a drawing of Seimei_, Ritsuka thought with an odd pang of jealousy.

The next page was completely blank. After that Ritsuka found himself looking at a strangely accurate sketch of himself. Next to it was Ritsuka's name written in Soubi's neat handwriting. Along with it were a few notes about him like _He likes the rain_, _He blushes whenever I touch him_, and _I'm actually falling in love with him. _His face was beat red as he turned the next few pages to see a couple more sketches of himself. Others were of the different people that Soubi knew such as Kio or the Zero boys. The last few were of House, Thirteen, Foreman, Chase, and an American woman Ritsuka didn't know.

The last page written on was a letter addressed to Kio.

_Kio-_

_As you know I've left Japan on a two-month trip to America. The way things are going right now there is a high chance I may never return. Ritsuka is sick and I am worried he is facing death _(Ritsuka had to look closely to make that word out, as it had been erased many times)_. I am currently at_ _Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Four doctors, one of whom is one of the best in the world, are looking at Ritsuka's condition._

_I figured that I should write this letter to you since you are my only friend. If I don't return it is because I have nothing else to live for in the occurrence that Ritsuka dies. It isn't that I have given up my own life. If you will call Doctor Gregory House at this hospital, he will be able to tell you where I've gone and he will explain everything. I ask you to take care of Natsou and Yoji and see to their well being for me. I apologize for the suddenness of this letter but it was needed. If you receive this letter it means I have made up my mind. Goodbye._

_-Soubi_

Ritsuka held the letter in his hands, tears falling freely from his eyes now. It was clearly a piece of paper that Soubi had never intended for him to find. It meant that Soubi understood that he was dying and the doctors couldn't figure out the unknown.

A whimper escaped the small Sacrifice's lips as he wondered what Soubi was planning to do. He was dying, he realized. He was dying fast. He wanted to live. Not more than a year ago, Ritsuka had thought there was no more point in his day-to-day life. He had thought life was a chore. Now, life was different. He had something to live for.

Or rather, some_one_.

"…Ritsuka?" Ritsuka was pulled from his thoughts when he heard Soubi's voice. His blue eyes were open and he was looking at him, but otherwise he hadn't moved from his previous position. Ritsuka was speechless, mainly because he'd been caught red-handed going through Soubi's notebook. "Oh," Soubi glanced down. "Is that my book? Could you give me my glasses? I can't see too well without them."

"Yeah, sure," Ritsuka said, wiping his eyes and handing Soubi his glasses.

"Are you crying?" Soubi took the book from his hands and looked at the page Ritsuka had been reading.

"No," Ritsuka lied, wiping his face with his sleeve again.

"You saw the letter I wrote, didn't you?" Soubi sat up and took one of Ritsuka's hands. "Do you want me to explain it to you?"

"Yeah…" Ritsuka answered, trying hard to keep from breaking out in tears again.

"There's a spell, Ritsuka. If I use this spell when you're about to die, you won't."

Ritsuka sniffled, remembering something he had learned in science class, "…Where's the catch? Something has to be transferred. Nothing can just be created. Not even in a spell." (1)

Soubi took a deep breath, "You're not going to like this."

"Tell me what the damn catch is!" Ritsuka snapped more harshly than he meant to. He was actually more desperate than mad.

Soubi grabbed him, hugging him tightly. "I die, that's the catch," He murmured into his ear, nearly crushing Ritsuka. The boy let lose a quiet sob and let himself be held for a moment before wriggling out of the other's grasp.

"You can't do that," Ritsuka told him firmly, "I won't let you."

"Why not? Ritsuka, you so much more to live for, and I don't."

_No_. This could not be happening. How could Soubi think that?! Was it really one of them die or the other?

"I love you, idiot!" Ritsuka yelled. "That's why!"

"R-Ritsuka?" Soubi was visibly shocked at Ritsuka's outburst. "Are you okay?" He leaned forward and felt Ritsuka's head with the back of his hand.

"That's what I've been trying to tell you for the past two days! I'm in love with you, dammit!" Ritsuka hadn't even meant to say it… it had just come out. He didn't regret it, though, since it was the way he felt, but he still felt wracked with nervousness.

And Soubi was smiling. Of all things, he was _smiling_. "I love you too, Ritsuka," He finally said, reaching forward and grabbing Ritsuka's hand, "I have from the very start."

Tears streamed down Ritsuka's face again, but this time it wasn't because he was scared. Instead he felt rather…happy. He could feel his heart beating a mile a minute and a blush spread across his face. For the first time, he was the first to wrap his arms around the older man. Soubi hugged him back, but then stiffened after a moment.

"Ritsuka!" He pushed the boy away and glanced at his arms. "Your heart and… What's that on your arms?"

Ritsuka glanced down to find his arms covered in different colored bumps. "H-Huh?" He stumbled backwards, feeling faint again, and crashed into the table. His head hit it hard and the darkness closed in on him.

* * *

(1) The first person who can guess that scientific law gets either a writing request or a sketch from me! Its extremely easy ;)

Hello again!

Thank you for all the wonderful reviews! Keep it up!

Review and answer my poll if you haven't already!

-Wolfie


	12. Chapter 12: Diagnosis

**_Chapter Twelve: Diagnosis _**

House had been fast asleep at his desk when he heard his pager go off. Coming to, he looked at the clock and groaned as he saw it was past three in the morning. He checked his pager and saw that it was a nurse was paging him from Ritsuka's room. Wait… that wasn't a nurse who'd paged him. It was… Chase?

He made a quick decision and picked his cane up from where it had been hanging. It had to be important if Chase was paging House at this time of night. It also meant that he hadn't gone home, but this wasn't the time to be analyzing that.

House arrived at the room quicker than he had expected. Chase and a nurse were waiting for him inside. Soubi was a safe distance away from Chase and the nurse, looking shocked and oddly pale.

"It's not MS or Crohn's," Chase told him from his crouched position on the floor over an unconscious Ritsuka. He moved to the side, revealing a large bloody spot on the front of Ritsuka's hospital gown. "He's got a rash on his arms and his kidneys are failing."

* * *

"You did a colonoscopy on a thirteen year-old two days ago while he was _awake_?! And m just finding this out now?!" Cuddy looked at House, enraged. Soubi smirked to himself, knowing that Cuddy was the only person above House.

"You told her?!" House shot at him. Soubi had been consulting Cuddy about Ritsuka's condition when House had come in to get permission to do a kidney biopsy.

"I may have let it slip."

"You could have put him to sleep, House!" Cuddy raged at him.

"But I didn't. I swear to god, it was necessary," House shrugged.

"You don't even believe in God!"

"I had to make sure that the pain wouldn't trigger something. I also needed to know when it hurt," House rolled his eyes sarcastically. "I have to do a kidney biopsy. I need to test a piece for all kinds of kidney disease. That means I need a rather large piece." 

"Fine. But put him to sleep this time."

House frowned at her and left just as suddenly as he entered.

"I apologize for him," Cuddy sighed, sitting back down at her desk. "He's a little… unorthodox but he's the best doctor we've got."

"You've known him for a while," Soubi observed, thinking of the way the both of them knew how to play each other. It reminded him of Ritsu and Nagisa, always competing, neither ever winning.

"You can read people pretty well. Yes, we went to med school together. At a time we even…" She trailed off and looked as if she'd mentioned too much.

"Dated?" Soubi finished.

"You could call it that. Thank you for giving me an update on the case. I'll try to keep an eye on House for you."

"I just hope he'll come up with the right diagnosis soon," Soubi said as he stood up to leave. "Otherwise I think Ritsuka may be lying on his death bed."

* * *

"I'm tired," Ritsuka said, resting his head on Soubi's shoulder. "Can't I sleep?"

Soubi patted him on the head, "No, Ritsuka. You got a concussion when you fell. If you sleep, you could go into a coma. How's your rash?"

"I can't feel it but I think it's spreading."

It was mid-morning now. Soubi had returned to Ritsuka after leaving Cuddy's office. Ritsuka was tired, so Chase had suggested that Soubi quiz him to keep him awake. "Where do you live?"

"In a suburb of Tokyo," Ritsuka muttered.

"Where do I live?"

"In an apartment three miles away. Third one on the fourth floor. You already asked me that, remember?"

Soubi already knew that he had asked him previously. He just wanted to make sure he wasn't getting any worse. "What's the capital of the United States?"

Ritsuka took a moment to think before coming up with an answer, "Washington D.C."

"And what does D.C stand for?"

"District of Colombia," Ritsuka replied, changing his position so that he was lying down. "Sensei taught us before coming here."

"You really like her, don't you?" Soubi recalled the woman. She had been frail, shy, and clumsy. Soubi hadn't liked her at first because of his past experiences with teachers, but, from what Ritsuka told him, she wasn't half-bad.

"She's a nice teacher. Our class intimidated her at first but she's grown on us. I just hope… the rest of her career goes smoothly for her."

"You'll be able to go back and visit her, Soubi told him with a soft voice. He knew what was coming next even though he really didn't want to hear it.

"I'm about to die. They can't figure out what the hell is wrong with me and…" Ritsuka stopped, seeing Soubi cringe, "Sorry…"

"You're not going to die," Soubi promised both himself and Ritsuka.

* * *

House watched as Chase explained to Ritsuka and Soubi about the kidney biopsy as Foreman prepared Ritsuka for the anesthesia. House was the one who was going to administrate the sedative and monitor the screen again.

"Is it okay if he sleeps? He won't go into a coma or anything, will he?" Soubi questioned.

"We assure you that we'll be able to wake him up. House will be the one controlling the medication and the sleep," Foreman explained.

"God, _that's_ reassuring."

"Ritsuka, I'm going to-!" Chase started to tell him he was going to medicate him when House abruptly connected the IV tube to the medication tube, cutting Chase off. Ritsuka fell backward from his propped up position and flat onto the bed.

"You're not supposed to tell them when," House justified as if it was an excuse. He turned to Soubi, "Get out of here. You can't be in here during the procedure."

He looked as if he was going to protest but thought better of it and left.

Meanwhile, Chase was already numbing the area that the needle went in. Foreman handed him the clean needle and the two of them glanced at House.

House lightly hit Chase on the back of the head, "Don't wait for my permission, just do it!"

Chase scowled and pushed the large needle in. Ritsuka made an audible groaning sound and Foreman motioned to up the sedative. House jabbed the button on the machine several times before stopping.

"Careful not to tear an artery," Foreman warned. Chase gave a nod of acknowledgement and slowed his pace of pushing the metal pin in farther.

"Go up. We want his kidneys, not his bladder," House remarked, watching as Chase pushed farther towards the kidneys. "Now grab a piece of it and test it for all kidney diseases. I don't care how long it takes just do it."

* * *

"His kidneys aren't diseased, they're just failing. It's acute renal failure," Chase concluded in House's office the next day. Foreman and he were sitting at the table with the case papers spread out between them. They heard a soft almost reluctant knock at the door and Thirteen entered. She looked healthy and walked with just a slight limp.

"Hi," She greeted quietly as she sat in her place next to Foreman. She took a long look at the board and then went to studying the papers. "Is MS already ruled out?"

"Last night. The kid started urinating blood," House informed her without his usual edge.

"Leukemia," Chase guessed. "Lyme disease, Kidney stone, any one of those."

"Look, we just can't forget that he leapt off a building!" House shot back at him. The mystery of the case was making him more irritable than usual.

"Bipolar Depression," Foreman ventured. "It could have caused the delirium."

"No! Isn't it obvious that he's not bipolar or depressed?!" House tried to keep himself from yelling. Thirteen still hadn't spoken. In fact, she was pale and studying the symptoms closely. "What are you thinking?" He asked her.

"House," Her voice was soft. "It's Lupus. That's the only thing it can be. But…"

"But what?" Chase asked. "Lupus is curable. Problem solved."

Thirteen shook her head, "It's too advanced to be treated. He's going to die."

* * *

Another semi-cliffhanger!

Oh and about the sedative, They really aren't supposed to tell you when they're going to put you to sleep. They didn't with me (I had it for cortisone injections in my back). Literally, you're perfectly fine one minute, talking and all, then you see the doctors connect two tubes and you're out like a light.

One thing weird about anesthesia is that your internal clock shuts down. The next thing I knew after the doctors put me down was a breathing mas being pulled off of me. I couldn't figure out how long I'd been out or anything,

Yes, I've actually been through it.

And yes, I'll be doing it again soon.

Anyways, enough of my ramblings! Review if you like and vote on my poll if you haven't already!

Stay tuned for the next chapter,

~Wolfie


	13. Chapter 13: storm

_**Chapter Thirteen: Storm**_

"He has _what_?!" Soubi asked, wide-eyed.

"A condition called systemic lupus erythematosus," Foreman explained. "Or Lupus for short. It's an autoimmune disease that attacks every part of the body."

"Well, is it treatable?!" Soubi demanded somewhat hysterically.

"We're afraid…" Foreman swallowed, trying to put into gentle terms. "That Ritsuka is too sick to be treated."

It took a moment to sink in. Soubi's expression changed to one of fear. "What the hell are you trying to say?" He suddenly felt sick as he took a step backwards, away from Foreman.

"He's dying." Foreman told him, plain and simple, "There's nothing we can do to stop it."

And Soubi did the only thing he could so at that moment; he ran. He didn't know where he was going but he let his instincts carry him on. He heard Foreman call out but his voice was lost in the crowd. Everything else was, too; everything was blurred into the background. Nothing stood out to Soubi except the one person in his mind.

_I'm on the roof_.

It was such a simple statement to himself, but it brought Soubi crashing back to reality. The sky surrounded him on each side. Wind blew at him, seeming more harsh than it really was.

Soubi continued to the edge. It was the same edge that Ritsuka had tried to jump from, he could tell from the signs of struggle on the concrete. He leaded against the wall and looked out at the world below him.

_What am I going to do now? _He couldn't stop the thoughts from running through his head. _He's going to die. No, he's already dead. I need him! _Soubi glanced down again, this time really taking everything in. Thousands of people were below him, lingering on the streets, laughing with their friends, being normal, living normal lives.

_Why couldn't I have just been born normal? Or him? _Normal was a way of life to Soubi. It was something you were born into. There were two choices, being brought into the world 'normal' or being born the way everybody in Soubi's world was. _Normal _was people like Kio, Yuiko, and Ritsuka's sensei. The people who weren't were people like Soubi, Ritsuka, Seimei, Ritsu, or Nagisa.

Again and again Soubi wished he had been born into that other world. The world where people's worst problems were the person they were dating or breaking up with, instead of having to take on the worry of having your soul mate or best friend killed in a fight you were responsible for.

For a moment, Soubi thought about jumping. _Should I just get it over with now?_ He wondered. Foreman had made it sound like Ritsuka didn't have much time left. _Ritsuka would be devastated if I died now_. Soubi didn't want Ritsuka's last moments to be full of pain and anguish.

_He loves me and he's dying. The first person to ever love me is going to die. _For the first time in what had to be more than a decade, Soubi hid his eyes from the evil world and let the tears fall freely from his eyes. He buried his head in his arms and _cried_. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt this much grief. Something was finally _his_, someone finally saw him as a person rather than just an object or a possession, and it was just a matter time before that person would be dead.

Soubi had never had luck. He didn't believe in luck, but that was because of his lack of it. It could have been karma. Either way, neither concept was ever on his side. His parents had died when he was six. Then Ritsu took him in and taught him to be a tool and not a person. After that he proceeded to _rape _him when he was twelve. He was then given to Seimei, someone Soubi now recognized as a manipulative screwed up bastard. And now _this_.

If there really was such thing as a higher being, they sure as hell didn't like Soubi very much.

Ritsuka was the only good thing to ever happen to him. He was a shy pacifist who didn't believe that humiliating or punishing Soubi was right. He loved him. He could only be described as a sort of an angel.

The first water droplet fell on Soubi's head, bringing him alert to his surroundings again. Within minutes, a light drizzle had turned into a downpour. Soubi wasn't going to take cover. Instead, he spread his arms feeling as if the rain and wind could take him away and cure every trouble he had. Him and Ritsuka together. They could be so happy again.

"Hey!"

Soubi started at the sound of a gruff voice calling to him from the cover of the stairwell. He glanced over to see House, of all people, leaning against the door to the stairs.

"Get back inside or I'll have to hospitalize you too!" He yelled over the now howling wind.

Soubi grinned, which felt kind of ironic. "I don't get sick!" He called back to House.

"I meant that you're going to get electrocuted, dumbass! The antenna on this building is a target for lightning!"

_Being electrocuted would be perfect_, Soubi thought with a laugh. _It would probably kill me and be the end of my bad __so-called __'luck'. Either that or it'd just show how _'unlucky' _I am.  
_

"So be it," He shouted, spreading his arms more to show how much he didn't care.

"Get back in here or I'll call the mental ward and tell them you're an escaped patient refusing to obey authority!"

The sound of thunder overtook every other sound around for miles. Lightning cracked nearby and Soubi watched it in amazement. It was a flash of blinding white light coming down from the heavens and making shattering contact with earth. It was a violent connection between the two that cut the sky apart, tearing it in two.

Ritsuka would have wanted to see that. He would've wanted to capture it and bring it to life as a photo. That way he could always go back to that moment in time and know exactly how it felt. Maybe that was his reasoning for why he liked to take pictures. Maybe it was for the same reason Soubi painted, to try to capture the beauty and essence of that moment.

"Hurry up! If you haven't noticed, this building is tall and therefore prone to being struck with lightning. Get over here, or I will seriously call the mental ward!"

Defeated, Soubi retreated to the shelter of the stairwell. He shivered from the cold, feeling his wet clothes clinging to him. He felt small and helpless and wondered if he was going into shock.

"I thought you didn't care…" He said to House as the doctor led the way down the stairway.

"I don't."

"Then why do you care if I get struck by lightning?" It was a stupid question but Soubi had to keep himself from thinking about Ritsuka. If he thought about the Sacrifice he would be pulled away from reality and trapped in his own mind. "Where are you going?"

"I'm taking you to Cuddy."

"I don't want-"

"Shut up," House snapped irritably. "You're having an emotional breakdown and you may have caught pneumonia."

An hour later, Soubi sat huddled under a blanket in a clinic room. He stared into the nothingness void before him with only one thing going through his mind. One name. One face. Ritsuka. House had taken him to Cuddy. Cuddy had taken him down to the clinic and told him to stay there and dry off. House had been right; Soubi was having a severe emotional collapse.

Soubi wanted to scream, cry, and die all at once. He was feeling every emotion… and at the same time, none of them. There was a vacant look residing in his clear blue eyes, as if the rest of him had gone elsewhere.

The empty exam room was silent except for the rain pounding on the building outside. Soubi tried to focus on it, but he found it hard to do so. He though about going outside into it again, but knew he'd be thrown in the mental ward if he did. He decided to just focus on the obvious things around him, such as the paintings on the walls or the posters that hung on them.

The buzzing from the overhead light was starting to bother him. He was thinking about shutting it off when Cuddy finally entered the room. She huffed as she sat down in the rolling doctor's chair, clearly stressed after a long day.

She didn't say anything at first, so Soubi chose to speak first. "It's raining," He said, stating the obvious.

"Yes, yes it is," She told him in what was almost a motherly voice. She sighed and spoke again using that same voice, "House told me everything. He was watching you ever since you got on top of the roof in the first place."

"I'm not insane. I don't belong in one of those mental hospitals," He told her firmly.

"I never said anything about that. The way you're acting is completely rational. Listen, I know everything. There was a third person working on Minami-"

"_Don't_ say that bastard's name," Soubi warned, his head suddenly snapping up.

"_That_ case. The third person was me. I know everything and I know your connection to Ritsuka isn't something we can reckon with. I'm not going to put you on meds or diagnose you. I'm here to do what House can't. I'm here to talk."

"You sound like a psychiatrist," Soubi pointed out, hanging his head again. "I don't like them very much."

Cuddy smiled, "I'm just playing one. I don't have a degree on it, I swear, but I do run a hospital full of them."

"_He_ had a degree in that. He would take me to the conferences when he gave the speeches. He wasn't just a teacher," Soubi was talking without thinking. Why was he telling this lady all of this, anyways? He'd never told anyone the full story before.

"Ritsu isn't your father… is he?"

Soubi let out a cruel laugh, "No. If I was he might've had the morals to not do what he did to me." At seeing her look at him more intensely, he decided to explain. "I have scars on my back, ones that might heal one day. I doubt it, though. They've been there for fourteen years. He used to whip me; he said that it'd teach me to endure pain. And my ears…"

Cuddy was staring at him now, probably both in fear and anticipation.

"Well, he raped me when I was twelve. I say rape because I didn't consent to it. It was torture, the worst kind of pain," He flinched as he remembered it.

"Oh god… I never knew," Cuddy was quiet again. "A-are you feeling any better?" She stuttered after a while.

"Much," Soubi said sarcastically, but then realized it was true. His mind was clear for the first time in days. The stress that had nagged at him was kept to a minimal, as well as the headache he hadn't noticed he had. "Thanks," He added, handing Cuddy the blanket and heading off towards Ritsuka's room.

* * *

**I'm obsessed with video games.**

**I played roller coaster tycoon for five hours straight today. **

Oh and yesterday I went to the mall with some friends and they had an anime-themed store there :D. I was looking for the Loveless OST and the art book, but I didnt find them. If anyone knows where I could find them, can you give me the link, please? Anyways, I bought a mousepad with Miku Hatsune on it there.

Sorry for the ramblings about my life.

This is my favorite chapter. I don't know why, I just really like it. There's more to come!

Review and vote on my poll if you haven't already!

-Wolfie


	14. Chapter 14: Death

_**Chapter fourteen: Death**_

"Lupus," Chase explained to Ritsuka calmly. "Is incurable at the point you're at." Soubi held onto his hand as Ritsuka absorbed the words. Soubi had been gone for a couple hours and Ritsuka had begun to worry when he returned looking less worried than usual.

But now Ritsuka was in distress. "Wh-what's he talking about?!" He shot at Soubi in fast Japanese.

"Its incurable," He told him quietly.

"There's got to be something!"

Soubi glanced at Chase who pointed at the door with a questioning look as if asking if he should leave. Soubi nodded and held on to Ritsuka's hand tighter. "I'm sorry, Ritsuka," He said, leaning down and feeling water blur his vision once again. He didn't want Ritsuka to see him weak and crying. "I wish there was another way. I'll still do the spell if you want me to. I won't be able to live without you, anyways."

"And what makes you think I'll be able to live without you? I need you! I need you by my side, I need you to take my hand and guide me through it all! I wanted to move in with you after we got back to Japan! I wanted you to take my ears! I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you!" Ritsuka held onto Soubi, pulling him basically onto the bed with him. He was sobbing now, his tears being that of anguish, frustration, and confusion. He whimpered against Soubi as he held on to the man tightly.

"Ritsuka," Soubi whispered, his voice breaking slightly. Just hearing the other's name calmed him down. It felt so sweet on his lips, as if he were meant to say it.

Ritsuka loosened his grip on Soubi and stared directly into his eyes, "Stay with me for however much longer I have. I'm only going to get worse, so I'm going to need you here. I want to know everything about you. Forget what Seimei told you not to tell me. That's all in your head. He has nothing with you. Tell me. Talk to me. Teach me what I don't know." He broke off in a violent coughing fit. "Well, that's new," He said after a couple minutes of hacking.

"You know I can't break orders…"

"I'm about to die and you can't do that?! I'm telling you that whatever power you think Seimei has over you, he doesn't!"

Soubi smiled weakly, shifting his position so that he was sitting at the end of the bed near Ritsuka's feet. "Why?" He asked. "It's not a happy story. Why do you want to know?"

Ritsuka didn't look irritated as Soubi imagined. Instead, he returned his smile with a brilliant laid-back grin. "Why not? I want to understand why you're the way you are. I want to know how you lost your ears, what happened to your parents, how you met Seimei, things like that." He coughed a coupled times again and then quieted down.

"Alright," Soubi took a deep breath and began his long story.

* * *

It just didn't add up!  
But it did at the same time. Everything Ritsuka had was a symptom of Lupus. Everything. It had to be Lupus. That was the only explanation for what was happening.

House knew it was wrong, though. Something told him it was wrong. His gut told him it was wrong. The more he studied the symptoms, the more he confused he got. The rash was a silvery color, not red or purple. It wasn't in the right spot, either. People with Lupus usually had the butterfly rash going across their face. Ritsuka had the grayish rash on his arms, instead.

And the psychosis didn't add up either. People with Lupus had depression anxiety and depression, not psychosis. Ritsuka had been full out delusional. He wasn't anxious or depressed; in fact he seemed quite happy, especially around Soubi.

"House!" House's head snapped up when Cuddy yelled his name.

"What do you want?" It was around six hours after House had dumped an emotionally broken Soubi onto her. "Did you finally cure him or what?"

"I talked to Soubi hours ago. You come up with a final diagnosis yet?"

"It's Lupus," House told her.

Cuddy looked up at him, "Well that's great! You can cure him and they'll be on their way back home!"

"The Lupus is too advanced," House simply stated. "Anyways what did you want in the first place?"

Cuddy put a file down on his desk; "You're on clinic duty until the end of the day as punishment for not sedating a teen during a colonoscopy."

* * *

Ritsuka was on the verge of tears again by the time Soubi was finally done. He had told him everything, and had broken orders by telling him and explaining to him the truth. They were still in the same positions as before, with Ritsuka lying in the hospital bed and Soubi sitting at his feet.

Ritsuka had grown worse and worse over the hours. His coughing fits were more frequent and he had asked Soubi to shut off the lights in the middle of the story, saying that the light had bothered him. His hands were beginning to swell and he groaned out of pain every so often. He was a mess, and Soubi hated what it meant.

"You okay?" Soubi asked him after a minute of silence.

Ritsuka shuddered, his eyes sliding shut. "Yes…" He muttered after a moment. His eyes fluttered open, his eyelashes sparkling with wetness. "Hey, are you… crying?"

Soubi instantly put a hand to his face and felt definite wetness. "I guess," He said with a smile. He didn't know why he was crying, but it was probably for a number of different reasons.

"Thanks for telling me the truth. And… I want you to know that I meant it when I said that I love you. It wasn't out of panic. I meant every word of it and I'm not taking anything back," Ritsuka's words were strained; he was trying to keep the pain he was in from his voice.

It was still strange for Soubi to hear those words coming from Ritsuka's mouth. He loved hearing them, though. As a reply, he gently kissed the boy's soft lips and held on to one of his hands.

"You know you really freaked me out the first time you did that," Ritsuka pointed out with a small laugh.

"I suppose it would have been a little frightening."

"A _little_?!" Ritsuka faked being mad with a tell-all grin. "Come on you were this random person hanging around outside of my school, claiming to be my dead brother's friend. You said you wouldn't do anything, and the next moment I've got your tongue in my mouth!"

"I didn't do _that_ the first time." Soubi remembered that day. It was a day he would always recall; one that he would never forget. He frowned, knowing that Ritsuka wouldn't be around much longer to share that memory with him.

"You'll find somebody else," Ritsuka said, sensing his inner turmoil and giving his hand a weak squeeze.

"No I won't," Soubi cast his gaze downwards, not wanting to look at the dying boy's face. "after you die I'll probably belongin a mental hospital."

"Why do you say that?"

Soubi shook his head, "Because my mind shut down when I first heard about the disease. I fell apart."

Ritsuka reached out towards him, probably to hug him, when he seemed to lose control of his wrist. It dropped and hung as if it was unusable.

"God dammit!" Ritsuka cussed suddenly. "I've lost control of my health, my body, and my mind! What next?!"

They both stayed silent, knowing nothing was next.

"You have to do something to help him," Soubi said to Foreman. Foreman and Thirteen had both come to check on them. Ritsuka was weak as ever. He was constantly squirming from the pain and unable to walk since he kept falling over. "There has to be something to get him out of his misery."

Foreman exchanged glances with Thirteen, as if both were uncertain of something.

"We could… permanently sedate him," Thirteen ventured.

"Which would mean-" Foreman began to explain.

"I'm not an idiot," Soubi retorted sharply. "I know that it means killing him and I knew that was a choice. Ritsuka already said he wants to do it if it gets him out of the pain he's in." He couldn't even look at Ritsuka without desperately wanting to do the spell.

"He is going to die anyways," Foreman stated, glancing at a coughing, twitching, broken Ritsuka.

"Don't remind me!" Soubi growled.

"We're going to need you to sign the consent," Thirteen told him. "And we'll have to go tell House, too."

* * *

"You really think that he's going to sign?" Foreman questioned Thirteen casually an hour or two after leaving. They had had to look for House and ended up without results, get the consent papers, inform Cuddy, get more paperwork, alert some staff, and do some paperwork.

"The guy doesn't want to see the kid in pain. The kid doesn't want to be in pain. Why not do it?" Thirteen replied as they neared the room. "Wouldn't you want to die painlessly if you had Lupus?"

Foreman simply shrugged the question off and pushed the door open to the room. Ritsuka seemed even worse. He had a wrist drop in one hand and a foot drop in one foot. His hands were moderately swollen and his rash was definitely spreading. He was talking to Soubi in fast fretful Japanese, only calmed by the man's soothing voice.

Foreman explained the forms to Soubi and went over everything that would happen. What Thirteen, Foreman, and probably Chase would do is give Ritsuka a heavy sedative and let him go until he died. Soubi kept absentmindedly nodding and casting worried looks over at Ritsuka. He was about to sign after asking for a few minutes alone with Ritsuka when the door to the room slammed open.

"Drop that pen!" House yelled.

* * *

Hello again.

**ANOTHER CLIFFHANGER!!!**

I like cliff hangers :3

but I bet you guys don't.

Review and vote on my poll if you have the time!

Stay tuned!

~Wolfie


	15. Chapter 15: Occam's Razor

_**Chapter fifteen: Occam's razor**_

House hated clinic duty. Cuddy always assigned it to him as a punishment for something he did. The clinic was full of stupid people, doing stupid things, and being stupid. They were idiots who thought that they were smarter than him.

The first few patients House cured almost instantaneously. His mind was elsewhere, though, always on the case he had and not on the stupid people in the stupid clinic.

It wasn't Lupus. It couldn't be Lupus. The more House thought about it, the more House realized that he was right and everybody else was wrong. Lupus fit everything, though. "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth", right? That was the principal that House taught his team. That was Occams Razor.

But everything wasn't eliminated. They were overlooking something… something so simple nobody had even thought to suggest it. House racked his brain over and over again, looking for that answer. It was there; he knew it was, he just couldn't find it.

It was the sixth patient that finally did it for him.

House walked into the room to find a late twenties/early thirties pretty blonde mom with her short little six year-old son. House almost walked out of the room when he first saw them. He'd had too much of the 'oh my god he caught the sniffles at little Billie's house and now he's got a rash. Is he going to die?'. Mothers were honestly too protective over their children.

"What's wrong with him?" House said almost reluctantly as he decided on staying.

"Um… He's got nausea and diarrhea. That's all. Mark here was born with some blood problems, so that's why we came to the hospital," The woman explained. "I'm his mother, Sasha Jameson."

Maybe this woman had some sense in her since it could be a blood problem. There was one other very probable explanation, though.

"What'd you cook for dinner last night?" He asked her.

"Shellfish," Sasha replied after a moment of thought.

House made a quick note on the chart and turned to her, "Your son has shellfish…poisoning…" Then it hit him. Hard. It was like being slammed repeatedly into a wall. And it was so obvious.

House got up and left the room in a hurry. Limping into the hallway he heard Cuddy yell at him, "Where do you think you're going?!"

He glared at her, "I just figured out my case!"

"You'd better hurry, then!" She called. "Last I heard Soubi is signing the papers to put Ritsuka to sleep right now!"

"Drop that pen!" House yelled after bursting through the door to Ritsuka's room. The boy was squealing with pain and tossing and turning in the bed. He'd made it in time, though. Thirteen and Foreman were shocked at House's sudden appearance, as was Chase who'd also just arrived. Soubi hadn't even made a mark on the paper in front of him, meaning that House was still prohibited to do whatever the hell he wanted.

"Have you ever heard of Occam's razor?" He asked Soubi.

" 'The simplest explanation is usually the right one'? Yeah, I remember that one. What about it?"

"Thirteen, did you check everywhere in the fridge before the crazy bitch came home and jumped you?" He questioned, turning to her.

"Not everywhere," She replied, puzzled. "I didn't get to the freezer."

"Ritsuka," House nodded to Ritsuka and began speaking in Japanese. "How often does your mother feed you?"

"Almost every night," Ritsuka said with a cough. "Why?"

Instead of answering, House produced a cigarette shaped box from his pocket. He took out a white cylinder shaped thing from the box and went towards Ritsuka with it. "Open your mouth," He told him. Ritsuka obeyed and House successfully swabbed the inside of his mouth.

House went on to explain as he applied something to make the swab object work, "If I am correct it will mean that your mother is not only extremely smart, but has also been poisoning you for years by soaking your food in the poison itself." He finally held it up for all of them to see that the top was a bright pink color. House grinned and held out the swab for everyone, "I give you… lead poisoning!"

"He was right," Chase announced not more than thirty minutes later. Everyone except for him was still crowded in the room, anxiously waiting for the results of the blood tests to come back.

Ritsuka was beside Soubi, still twitching and in pain. Thirteen and Foreman talked in hushed voices off to the side. Natsou and Youji, who'd arrived not long before, were sitting on the floor beside the hospital bed. All had the same expression on their faces. It was a look that contained worry, hope, sorrow, pain.

Everyone except for House, that is. He stood in the doorway with Wilson, looking smug and muttering things to his friend occasionally. Of course, he knew he was right. According to him, he had every right to be smug.

A heavy air hung in the room as Chase walking in with the lab results. Thirteen and Foreman crowded around him as they both looked over his shoulder to see the paper.

"Those are off the charts!" Thirteen exclaimed. "She must have been poisoning him for about two years!"

The room was silent, as if everybody was waiting for one person to talk. "Is it curable?" Soubi asked House quietly.

"Very. You two should be back in Japan by next month," House said, quite satisfied with himself.

The atmosphere changed suddenly as Soubi and Ritsuka embraced happily. Natsou and Youji said something to them, and then laughed. House grinned, observing Wilson roll his eyes at the other doctor. Soubi looked over at House and said two words very quietly to him.

"Thank you."

* * *

*sobs* this is, excluding the epilogue, the end.

This is the final diagnosis.

**Fun facts time!**

**This was actually 3 chapters longer than I originally planned**

**I'm typing this on my blackberry when I should be sleeping**

**I did a months worth of reserch before starting to write**

**All the illnesses and their symptoms are real**

**This was hard to write**

**House is the best tv show ever**

**Loveless is the best manga ever.**

Stay tuned for the epilouge and go read my two new stories I put up yesterday!

Oh! And review, too!**  
**

**~wolfie**


	16. Chapter 16: epilogue

Chapter sixteen: Epilogue

Soubi sat up in the unfamiliar bed and stretched, immediately noticing the empty spot next to him. He was at first confused on where he was and where Ritsuka was, but the memories from the previous night came back to Soubi quickly. He smiled, remembering everything they'd done the previous night, every little sound that Ritsuka had made.

It was more than a year after the entire ordeal in America. Ritsuka had survived and had come back home with Soubi. Ritsuka's mother had been placed at an institution for the criminally insane, after word got out about how she tried (and almost succeeded) in killing her own son.

Ritsuka had gone to live with Soubi then, in his small apartment. The previous night, though, the two had shared an intimate break from school in a hotel near the ocean. Ritsuka was fourteen, almost fifteen, so it was perfectly normal for him to lose his ears at his age. It had been an absolutely amazing night, and Soubi wouldn't take it back for anything.

Finally fully awake, Soubi got dressed and found Ritsuka out on the balcony of their room. He was wearing one of Soubi's old sweatshirts and a pair of fleece pants. The man came up behind him and wrapped his arms around Ritsuka. Leaning further down he whispered into his ear, "You look even cuter without your ears."

Red spread across his face, which was odd for an almost fifteen year-old, but it was attractive anyways.

"How are you feeling?" Soubi asked him, raising a hand to feel Ritsuka's forehead. This was an odd habit Soubi had taken to, and did it almost every day since Ritsuka had gotten out of the hospital. The Sacrifice would usually just playfully bat him away, just as he was doing now.

"Stop that," Ritsuka laughed, know that Soubi did it out of worry. "For the last time I'm not sick!"

"What's this?" Soubi finally noticed what sweatshirt of his Ritsuka was wearing. "Where'd you find this old thing?" Printed on the front of it was the Seven Voices school logo in big blue print.

"In the bottom of your bag," Ritsuka said, leaning against him. "I'm glad that you told me everything about your life back in the hospital. Otherwise, I would've never known."

"Yeah," Soubi murmured, holding Ritsuka around the waist. "You think it'd be a good idea to give House a call and tell him thanks for everything?"

They both laughed, knowing the reply that they'd get.

* * *

This is the actual end to this story.

This is my most reviewed and almost most viewed story. For most viewed, its a close second to 'A Death Note Fallen Into The Wrong Hands' which has both been up for much longer and has an extremely long title.

I enjoyed writing this story but the research was hard. The first thing I did was type in the symptom 'memory loss' into web MD. I had to start somewhere, so I thought, why not here? This is how I came up with Viral encephalitis. This was going to be my first final diagnosis, but then lupus came up so I took a look at that too. When I was researching Lupus I came across a section of diseases that it could be commonly mistaken for and then it hit me! _Bam_! Lead poisoning was listed as one, and I thought _how perfect it that?!_

So then I started asking 'can someone actually poison you by using lead?' turns out, its true if there's enough. I also took notes on 10-12 other diseases, too.

Special thanks to all the reviewers and my beta summer-flower-girl

Please go read my two new stories and keep up with my writing!

~Wolfie


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